Scotland

Jamie Leonard, Wonder Boy – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

As my final show in this year’s Edinburgh Magic Festival, Wonderboy brought energy, charm and an undeniable sense of youthful confidence. Performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Jamie arrives fresh from a successful 2025 Edinburgh Fringe run and clearly comfortable in front of an audience.

This boy unquestionably knows his way around a stage. There’s a strong theatrical instinct at work here, allied to a rubber-faced expressiveness that plays very effectively to a mixed crowd. At just 17, his confidence is impressive, and he leans into his age with a stream of schoolboy humour and routines that feel knowingly pitched rather than apologetic. It’s a sensible strategy, and one that allows him to sidestep the trap of pretending to be more seasoned than he is.

That said, the show occasionally relies a little too heavily on charm to carry moments that might otherwise benefit from sharper structure or stronger magical payoff. A sequence in which four audience members describe their experience of school, using words such as “fun”, “terrible”, “stressful” and “absent”, was engaging on a human level, but relatively light on actual magic. Leonard’s success in identifying the owner of each description was handled warmly, yet the segment felt more like a personality exercise than a fully resolved piece of conjuring.

Across the show as a whole, the technical level of the magic is solid rather than exceptional. Compared with some of the more sophisticated acts seen elsewhere in MagicFest this year, Wonderboy doesn’t consistently reach the same level of ingenuity or surprise. Again, this is not fatal, the show is clearly designed around accessibility and engagement, but it does mean that astonishment sometimes takes a back seat to affability.

There are also presentational issues that suggest a performer still learning how to trust momentum. Frequent shifts between house lights up and down, music on and off, create a stop-start rhythm that occasionally disrupts the flow. Instead of heightening moments, the cues sometimes underline them too heavily, as if the show doesn’t yet believe the material will land without technical emphasis. With time, this is likely to resolve itself, but at present it undermines the confidence the performance otherwise projects.

None of this negates the fact that Leonard is a compelling presence with genuine promise. He understands audiences, reads a room well, and already possesses a level of ease that many performers twice his age would envy. Wonderboy may not yet be the most accomplished magic show on the MagicFest programme, but it is a clear marker of potential.

As a closing note to my festival reviewing, it served as a reminder that polish and depth take time, but instinct and connection cannot be taught. Jamie Leonard has the latter in abundance. The former will come, and when it does, this could become something genuinely formidable

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 28th December 2025

North West End UK Rating: