UNREAL
A Festival of Magic and Performance

Curated by Tom Cassani, Augusto Corrieri and Tim Bromage

Information

Tickets: Pay What You Can (Recommended Prices from £8)*

*All orders subject to a £2 transaction fee

Events take place in various spaces across our building

Priority booking is now open to BAC Champions and Hive Members.
General booking opens Friday 24 July at 12pm

The world can feel bewildering. Truth shifts. Reality slips. It’s hard to know what to believe.

UNREAL brings together extraordinary artists from across the UK and Europe working at the intersection of magic and performance to present to you a series of unreal acts for uncertain times.

Across five days, encounter incredible images, strange transformations and moments of collective awe, as sleight of hand and stage illusion are reimagined through theatre, choreography and live art.

UNREAL invites audiences behind the curtain; questioning assumptions and asking us to look again at what we see, hear and believe.

Whether you’re a fan of magic, curious about contemporary performance, or simply searching for something unexpected, UNREAL is an invitation to experience the impossible, together.

Explore all Events

A white man with piercing blue eyes is mostly in shadow, with only the right edge of his face in the light. He has blue tape all over his face, covering everything but his eyes, nostrils and mouth. He is holding some playing cards to his mouth as if he is about to eat them, his hand is in a blue latex medical glove.

7 & 14 Nov

Magic: An Illustrated History

Jim Dahl Presents

An oblique history of magic combining live vocals, illusion and puppetry.

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A headshot of a white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes in a black and white pinstriped suit. Her mouth is open, and lots of tongues are falling out of it.

7 Nov

A Mouthful Of Tongues

Stina Fors

'A Mouthful of Tongues' is a performance about what a body can hold, and what it cannot contain.

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Two images are placed next to each other horizontally. On the left, a man with long brown hair tied up in a bun is using his hand as a puppet with two googly eyes stuck on top of his fingers. On the right, another man is sat down and dressed all in black, and is reaching over to the right with a deck of cards in his hand.

7 Nov

Black Magic and Iterations
(Double Bill)

Tom Cassani, Luis Sartori do Vale and Kalle Nio

How much do you trust your own eyes? Witness a double bill of world-class contemporary magic.

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A woman with dark hair wearing a blue dress suspends herself from the floor of a dark stage with one arm, the other is raised above her and her legs are raised off the floor.

10 - 11 Nov

Lento e Violento

Valentina Cortese

Blending circus, dance, music and magical illusion, Lento e Violento invites you to explore the fantastical.

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Nov 11

Artist Talk: UNREAL

Marisa Carnesky and Jo Bannon

Join trailblazing artists as they discuss their performance practices and how they explore magic within them.

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Nov 12

Perpetuity
(Work-in-Progress)

Shambles Ensemble

Fusing visual and physical storytelling, clowning and illusion, Perpetuity explores a life that is never quite finished. 

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A man with short black hair and glasses is has their back slightly turned away from the viewer, wearing a black t-shirt. He has just thrown a pale, almost transparent piece of cloth in the air, his arms still outstretched from the motion. The cloth is still suspended in the air, and there is a fan in front of the man keeping it afloat. The background is completely black.

13 Nov

Liminal
(Work-in-Progress)

Hsiang-Sheng Teng

Blending performance magic with live art, movement and film, Liminal invites audiences to explore the boundaries between illusion and reality.

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A white man with long curly hair tied back in a ponytail is wearing a suit and extending out his arms as if ready to cast a spell. He looks concerned, as if he’s trying to ward something off. Behind him is a window painted black and a metallic red and purple curtain. The whole image has a paint-like quality to it, as if it’s been put through a retro filter on photo-booth to make it appear more like a poster.

13 Nov

Oraculum
(Work-in-Progress)

Tom Cassani

A new show exploring mass psychic reading to reveal how we unknowingly share similar experiences and thoughts.

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13 - 14 Nov

Escaping Oneself

Chloé Vivarès

A haunting, intimate performance blending feats of memory, theatre, and humour.

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A white woman with blonde hair is lying on her back, cuddling a ventriloquist doll. She’s wearing a white shirt and jeans, and the doll is also blonde, with lined eyes and very red lips. It’s wearing a cream turtleneck jumper and chequered black and white trousers.

14 Nov

Answer Me, Pythia
(Work-in-Progress)

Stina Fors

A performer. A dummy. One voice between two bodies. What happens to a voice when the belief system around it changes?

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An image of a man reading a book whilst a confetti of playing cards falls around him.

Nov 14

This Is Not A Magic Show

Vincent Gambini

A show about magic, about theatre, but mostly about ourselves and how easily we suspend our disbelief.

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Biographies

Tom Cassani

Tom Cassani is a UK-based performance maker working with choreography, magic and live art. His performances draw on an expanded approach to magic examining the nature of perception and truth. Using his body as a site of deception, he explores the construct of performing the impossible. Cassani’s illusory texts, imagery and physicality expose the body as an unreliable measure of truth, and his unique approach reveals the mechanics of trickery ensuring we stay aware of our own role in experiencing something that isn’t real.

 

Augusto Corrieri

Vincent Gambini, real name Augusto Corrieri (Italy/UK), is a Brighton-based performance maker and writer. He uses the pseudonym Vincent Gambini to approach magic as a performing art, informed by many years studying and working professionally across contemporary theatre and live art.

Magic performances include his critically acclaimed This Is Not A Magic Show (2015), The Chore of Enchantment (2018), the film The Disappearing of Vincent Gambini (2021, made with artist Hugo Glendinning) and the one-to-one live performance over headphones Close-up (2024).

Alongside magic, he works as a writer, essayist, and theatre lecturer. His book In place of a show: What happens inside theatres when nothing is happening is published by Bloomsbury.

 

Tim Bromage

Tim Bromage is a performer and musician based in Wales.

His practice is informed by folklore, music, and the uncanny. His work has been presented throughout the UK, Europe, and North America. 

He lives with his dog Binky.