Blue Wizard - Belvoir

Overview

First performed at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists in 2013, Nick Coyle’s Blue Wizard has been restaged at Belvoir with dramaturgy from Adena Jacobs especially for this year’s Mardi Gras. Coyle graces the downstairs stage at Belvoir like a gay, wizard version of Lally Katz in Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, dressed ready to party and full of the truth and grit of human (or wizardly) experience.

Coyle’s premise is thrilling and absurd. A blue wizard from another planet "where everyone’s gay" wins a competition to travel to earth. Upon arrival he offers a spectacular, sparkly song and dance inviting us to celebrate his arrival with an orgy. Belvoir’s Sunday audience responded on this occasion with friendly reticence.

On Coyle’s planet, each wizard is gifted with superpowers according to their colour. He is a blue wizard, which basically signifies that he is a benign floozy, ill equipped to survive the dull scene on earth lacking the three things he needs in life to survive: “diamonds, cocaine and jizz”.

For all its adult content, this one-man extravaganza is like watching a child at play in the backyard. Coyle flits from one flight of fancy to the next and seems genuinely surprised that we’re not joining him on stage.

This isn’t just Coyle shooting the breeze in sequined hot pants though; it’s an intergalactic epic that addresses one of the great questions of our age — time travel. Call it plagiarism, call it the zeitgeist, but Blue Wizard showed that love is the answer to time travel before Interstellar did. And for the record, Coyle is every bit as dashing as McConaughey, and the special effects are just as good. Lighting designer Damien Cooper’s exuberant use of strobes and lasers elevates the show from stand-up comedy to a full-blown theatrical experience.

All the show needs now is a guest appearance from Lally Katz’s perfectly gay Hope Dolphin.