The Journey

Has there ever been a stage illusionist’s show that blends conversational audience interaction with live broadcast? If not, the conditions brought about by Covid-19 have forced Scott Silven to invent a show for our times.

The Journey’s audience of thirty log in online and watch clips of the young illusionist roaming the hills and glens of Scotland as we wait, soundtracked by Jherek Bischoff’s elegiac score. Then we see Silven in what looks like the high-ceilinged Georgian sitting room of an Edinburgh tenement.

His jet-black hair has volume and his transatlantic Scots-American voice bears the kind of comforting reassurance you might expect from someone in his trade. Previously based in the US, he talks about returning to his Scottish homeland earlier this year.

Then Silven tells a tale of a young Highland boy called Cally, who finds a mysterious, derelict cottage in the hills, and goes on a journey that allows him to see the scale of his own life. During his story, Silven plucks audience members from the swirl of live webcam feeds projected behind him, and asks us about memories and years of significance to us.

It would be unfair, of course, to describe how each audience response manifests itself amid the performance, but let’s just say that Silven plays the entire composition like an orchestral crescendo rather than a sketch show.

As an hour of interactive escape in our own home, The Journey is an impressively complex achievement, yet the script from playwright Rob Drummond elevates it to a new level. His words, channelled by Silven, speak not just of the connection between audience and performer, but serve as a much-needed reminder of the simple, life-enriching links among people.