Smoke & Mirrors takes world by storm

Sydney Festival’s Smoke & Mirrors has had a knock-out dream season at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with rousing acclaim from critics and audiences alike.

Sydney Festival’s Smoke & Mirrors has had a knock-out dream season at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with rousing acclaim from critics and audiences alike.

The Guardian gave the show four stars, praising iOTA as “a remarkable presence both seductive and repellent, jaunty and regretful, malevolent and desperately sad”.

NSW Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge MP said: “The success of Smoke & Mirrors in Edinburgh is further proof of the high calibre of artists we have in NSW. Sydney Festival should be applauded for commissioning a local work that not only had Sydney audiences queuing up, but has wowed international crowds as well.”

With interest coming from festivals in Europe and the USA, Smoke & Mirrors can look forward to a long life well beyond Sydney Festival 2011, where it will play a much-anticipated four-week return season at The Famous Spiegeltent in Hyde Park.

Commissioned by Sydney Festival and Spiegeltent International, and created by Craig Ilott and iOTA, Smoke & Mirrors is a wickedly outrageous show featuring an eclectic troupe of Australian talent.  Drawing from the worlds of cabaret, circus, vaudeville and sideshow, the production takes the audience on an utterly unique, seductive and thrilling theatrical journey.

iOTA leads an exceptional cast as the sultry, insatiable and enigmatic ringmaster, performing a host of original musical numbers backed by a formidable live band. 

The Sydney Festival will be held from 8–30 January 2011. The season dates for Smoke & Mirrors are yet to be confirmed.