Vaudevillian duo Norvil & Josephine present their magical extravaganza. Rabbits Out of the Hat is a whimsical comedy musical magic show, fun for all ages. By turns amazing, inspiring and comical, you’ve never seen a show quite like this.

Bringing their magic and comedy to the Fringe, Chrisopher Howell and Desireé Kongerød chat with Corr Blimey

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Would you mind giving us a brief insight into what your show/event/performance is?

RABBITS OUT OF THE HAT is a comedy musical magic show for all ages. It’s a fun and breathtaking smorgasbord of magic, dance, singing and clowning all tied together by a feel-good story about finding your voice.

Tell us about the creative team and the process involved?

The core team lives in London: Christopher Howell (a Magic Circle magician, actor and singer) and Desireé Kongerød (a dancer, choreographer and circus performer). This has been a 4-year long developmental process with composer Micah Young (composer, New York), Ira Seidenstein (clowning and movement director, Brisbane) and Jeff McBride (magic consultant, Las Vegas). We developed the show content with our team over Zoom!

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How does it feel coming to the Fringe?

We’re very excited to share our work. It’s our first show at the Fringe, so after years of hearing about how it is, now we can finally share our work here.

With shows from all over the world at the Fringe, what sets yours apart?

This will probably be the only comedy musical magic show you will ever see! Usually magic and circus are performed on their own, and without a narrative to hold them together. But we wanted to integrate a heartwarming story in a musical theatre style that would draw people in as much as the magic and circus itself.

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Is there anything specific you’re hoping the audience will take away?

A smile they didn’t walk in with and the sense that they’ve never seen anything like this before. Seriously!

Your Ideal audience is in attendance, who’s watching? Or more importantly – who isn’t…?

You won’t believe us but we’ve done this show for 1) theatres of only adults, who walk out raving about it, and 2) we’ve done EXACTLY the same show for theatres of mostly children and…. it’s the same. It’s like a Pixar cartoon, everyone is being catered for. 

It’s an intense month, so where you’re able, how do you plan to relax, and are there any other shows you intend to see or want to recommend?

We’ve both rocked up here with our yoga mats. I’ll be meditating every morning. And we hope to catch up with some friends coming as well. You should also check out Tom Brace magic show, Silent Rocco’s mime show and for some adult laughs, A&E Comedy’s Do All the Things.

In your ideal world, how can we improve the Fringe, performance, and the industry?

We’re still about to have our first Fringe experience so we’ll surely have more ideas later, but for now, probably the biggest issue for most every creative coming to the Festival is the cost of everything.  What can be done to solve that? (you did say ‘in an ideal world’) 😉 The costs are prohibitive for an industry that’s already on shaky legs. 

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Interested in being featured on our Have a Gander page? With many previews and Q&As lined up, we’re always happy to chat about including your show in future articles. Please do get in touch through the contact page to feature in an upcoming ‘Have A Gander’