In a world of deepfakes and augmented reality has magic lost its power to thrill? The performer Dynamo says we need it now more than ever
Midnight in Tokyo. I’m standing in a narrow alleyway behind one of the hostess clubs in the capital’s red-light district. A large screen displays live updates of the gender balance inside, currently: ladies 113, men 87. Just around the corner is a famous hangout of the yakuza gangs, where a few months earlier there was a bloody shootout and a Korean crime boss was killed.
Dynamo, one of the world’s most successful magicians, is used to performing in edgy atmospheres: he’s done street magic for gang members in LA’s Compton, and illicit tricks in Saudi Arabia where magic and the supernatural are banned and punishable by 40 lashes. But Tokyo is the one he’s always dreamed of, especially after he saw Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift in his 20s – a film that includes the immortal line: “The first drifters invented drifting out here in the mountains by feeling it. So feel it!”
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