‘Oh my goodness, I love Limmy!’, beams Scottish illusionist Scott Silven, when I ask him if he knows the Glasgow comedian’s TV character, Raymond Day, a stage show medium with a jewelled pinky ring. ‘Whenever I want to feel more connected to Scotland, I watch Limmy’s clips on YouTube. He’s just hilarious. Raymond Day gives terrible, disturbing information on stage, from beyond the grave: “your mother is in hell”. But no, that’s mediumship, which I find a little bit icky. That’s definitely not what I do.’ 

Silven isn’t a medium. He’s not a hypnotist either. But he is the first illusionist to ever bring magic to the Edinburgh International Festival programme. His show Wonders has toured the world, stopping at Sydney Opera House, Auckland Arts Festival and Brighton Festival, amongst a string of other international pit stops. This morning his brain is adjusting to the jetlag as he drops into Venice after a month performing in Tokyo. 

‘I call what I do “theatre of the mind”,’ he says in a Scottish accent, dropping his T on theatre, just as he does on words like ‘exciting’ and ‘metaphor’. Although he grew up in Lanark, and moved to Hamilton when he was 12, he’s called New York his home since 2017. He got his start at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he met his manager and never looked back. ‘My manager asked me what my five-year-plan was. I said I’d always wanted to move to New York. It was like this weird goal as a kid. I’d never visited but just learned about it through osmosis in films and on TV; it was like this North Star I always followed. He told me we could work towards that and get me there in three years. Four weeks later I was moving to New York City. The show was meant to run off Broadway for four weeks and it ran for 18 months.’

Wonders is a show about the power of the imagination, beginning with his own memories of Scottish landscapes growing up and inviting the audience to explore their own personal sense of awe. ‘The essence of wonder can inspire creativity, it motivates us, it lets us engage with the world in a different way. For me what’s most exciting is that it lets you look at your life in a different way. The bubble you live in can be changed.’

I’m still not sure what to expect from the show, although he’s been trying to give me a flavour without letting slip any of the actual tricks of his trade. ‘Sure, there’s a degree of psychology involved, but that’s just one element. There’s a lot of stagecraft and storytelling. I weave it all together to make this impossible experience.’

I ask for a sample over Zoom and he asks me to think up a book in my mind. I’ve just put an old copy of The Catcher In The Rye on a pile for the charity shop. He wants me to focus on the main character and after a few questions about my son and an internet search that he puts me on about Wikipedia stats, he quickly and quietly comes up with Holden Caulfield. I have no idea what tells I gave away, what suggestions he planted, which distractions he fooled with me. But take my money, that was cool. 

His back story begins with a simple magic trick taught to him by his grandad when he was five. He became hooked on coin and card tricks, and loved testing out new ones on his family. Nowadays he admits they are his toughest crowd. ‘They know me too well, so I fail every time. There’s a different level of rapport; they know behind the façade of the mentalist and the techniques don’t work. If they ever come along to my shows, and I end up fooling them and they have a great experience, I know I’ve got a really amazing, powerful illusion.’ 

Seven-year-old Scott was drawn from the Clyde Valley to the tiny Tam Shepherds Trick Shop in Glasgow, the oldest magic shop in the world. The owner Roy Walton (who passed away in 2020) took Scott under his wing, training him up. ‘The shop is a little strip of wooden display cabinets, about the size of a shoe closet. When you walk in the store there are very simple magic tricks, then the further up you go it gets more advanced. You’re not allowed in the top part when you first go in. I started with the card tricks and developed that, before focusing more on body language and hypnosis.’ 

A man with a plan from an early age, teenage Silven told his mum he was going to a school camp, and made the 40-hour journey to Milan to do a hypnosis course instead. He boarded a bus at Buchanan Street and went via London and Paris, with almost no money on him. ‘I was either 13 or 14. It’s something I wouldn’t do now, but as a kid you have that sense of indestructability, don’t you?’ 

Years later when he was studying at Edinburgh University, he would walk past the Scotch Malt Whisky Society on Queen Street. ‘I had no budget. I was a struggling student and getting a venue for shows was really challenging. I saw this fascinating old Georgian townhouse and thought I’d love to perform there. I laid my cards on the table and they were onboard. We sold tickets (including very special drams of whisky) for £59, which was controversial as I think that was the most expensive Fringe ticket at that time. It just worked really well so we repeated it the next year. That was about ten years ago now. It’s going to be very exciting to come back.’

You’ll find him upstairs in The Hub, guiding his audience into what he calls ‘the grey area between light and dark. There’s nothing mystical. And I’m definitely not trying to control anyone. It’s more like I’m a conduit for everyone to feel something impossible, collectively. It’s not heavy either. It’s meant to be fun.’ 

Scott Silven: Wonders, The Hub, 23 August, 7.30pm, 10.30pm.