Keith Barry excited to bring his Unhinged show to Cork, and plans to blow your mind

Keith Barry, the Irish-born and world-renowned magician, illusionist and mentalist has been celebrating 25 years of live performance with his show ‘Unhinged’. He is coming to the end of a mammoth tour schedule with three final shows in The Everyman in October. 

Reflecting on how much his career and industry has changed over the last quarter of a century also means Barry has considered how the audiences have evolved, as a result how he has adapted how he performs his shows.

“I find that a lot of people now think they can Google the answer to anything. So the challenge for me is a good one, it’s a creative one. Years ago, I would come up with a show and I would just present it. Now when I’m coming up with the show, I’m being challenged to come up with methods that people cannot just look up afterwards, so they go, ‘oh shit, I can’t find this out with a simple search, I still don’t understand how this works’, so that adds to the mystery after the show. For me, I’m prolonging the show in the mind of the audience; I’m coming up with methods and ways to manipulate the brain, continuing the whole thing inside their head. As long as it’s in their head, the show continues.”

25 years of live shows has also had an impact on how Keith structures his performances, he continued.

“When I first started I used to do something fast and snappy at the start of the show to catch the attention. I don’t do that anymore, people know me by now, they know my work, they’re coming to an experience. They know why they are there themselves, as a result I don’t do anything fast anymore, I have a new model, which I’ve only developed in recent years, which is ‘open with your closer’. 

Something that’s just going to destroy their brains straight away, something so mindblowing that they think ‘Okay, I give up!’ I want everyone to resign themselves to the show from the off, even the skeptics. So now, in the first routine, I’m reaching out to the skeptics and engaging with them. 

The first routine is about 15 minutes long, it’s deliberately long but not boring; over the 15 minutes, there’s probably 15 moments of amazement. That’s why it’s overwhelming for an audience. They just have to give in straight away, accept they’re not going to understand anything and just give in!”

Keith feels this change of performance style brings what he does to a whole new level. “I don’t even really do ‘tricks’ anymore in the live show, it’s more experiments and mysteries of the mind. It’s not about just ‘wowing’ people, it’s more to do with what will emotionally engage an audience. I called the show ‘Unhinged’ because it really is unhinged. I incorporate my own dead dad in the tour, I bring his ashes on stage and we do a seance every night… now that’s unhinged. Nobody in the world has ever done that. I’ve researched it and nobody has ever done anything close to it. My dad didn’t believe in an afterlife, and I don’t believe anybody has contacted or can contact the afterlife, and guess what… we manage to do it anyway. I want people to feel that they’re being pushed over the edge of that cliff, looking down and thinking ‘Oh, Jesus, this is scary.’

“It’s bizarre, and it gets really weird, but I make sure that the audience knows that we’re psychologically safe within the four walls. My messaging is ‘I’m scaring you, but I’m going to pull you back.’ I also tell the audience that ‘what you’re seeing is not real’, I don’t allude or hint that, I actually actively tell them. People know they’re being scared, but they still know it’s not real. I remind them it’s not real but it feels real in that moment. It’s that collective experience. So when I’m thinking of making shows now, I don’t think about tricks and impressing people, I think about how people remember how they feel, and even though that’s a scary moment in the show, it’s only one element of the show.

“At the end of the show, I genuinely want the audience feeling empowered. I want them walking out with a smile on their face and happily knowing that they can’t – and won’t – understand everything in the world, and that there’s still mystery.”

Despite all the technological development over the years Keith feels that audiences, in general, have become less sophisticated.

“I think in general people have become more gullible than ever because they’re so open to believing anything that’s on their phone, and then they’re arguing over what’s real and what’s not real. I was recently told by a social media expert, and I do need to check this myself for the exact statistic, but apparently, most social media content now is faked or doctored and it’s gotten so good that we can’t tell the difference now. It’s fascinating… and brilliant for me.”

Keith is relishing getting out live on stage in The Everyman. “My favorite part about what I do is walking out on the stage, because it’s a collective experience. It’s the energy of an audience mixing with my energy. I give my all every night. We need it as human beings, we’re tribal, we need to be around other human beings. We need that human touch, and that’s now going out the window. I just love transforming people where they can forget about AI, forget about wars and pandemics, forget about their everyday problems, forget about their everyday lives. I love it because everyone is offline and present in the moment and entering that world of wonder.”

• Keith Barry - Unhinged The Final Shows will be taking place in The Everyman Palace on Friday, October 16, at 8pm and Saturday, October 17, at 2pm and 8pm. Tickets are available via www.everymancork.com