Review: THE ENIGMATIST at Wilton's Music Hall

Kwong has experienced considerable success in North America with shows at major cities like Chicago, New York, Toronto, Washington DC and Los Angeles. During the course of the evening, he combines his love of puzzles, magic, performance, people and the history behind various mathematical conundrums which have perplexed and engaged minds down the ages. Incorporated into his storytelling are Francis Bacon and his famous (or should that be infamous?) claim to be able to demonstrate through a cypher that he was actually responsible for penning Shakespeare's plays. Even more prominently featured are the husband and wife team of William and Elizabeth Friedman who were co-opted by George Fabyan the wealthy textile merchant, into work at his Riverbank Laboratories on his sprawling estate at Geneva Illinois. Due to being treated appallingly by their egotistical employer they eventually left acrimoniously, but following their departure they began working for various government departments and their eventual contributions to code breaking and cypher cracking were to prove fundamental to America's victory over the Japanese during the latter stages of the war. Subsequently, they earned considerable prestige and a revered reputation in academic circles..

These tales form the background to Kwong's understandable obsession with magic and puzzles and he manages through considerable engagement with the audience, to create a sequence of wordy and numerical conundrums which prove utterly astounding in their overall interconnectedness with other seemingly random matters which are touched on during the course of the evening.

Of course without engagement, such an evening would be nothing, but thankfully Mr Kwong proves to be one of those rare beings whose intellect, intelligence and communication skills have been honed to such a fine degree that when he stands before an audience and incorporates finessed tricks with his engaging patter, not to mention the occasional wisecrack, you are putty in his hand. Everyone seemed eager to participate, engage and shout out contributions to supply him with material and confirm to him how thoroughly we were all enjoying his show. Were we brainwashed? More likely it was a simple matter that his brain-twisting enigmas, sleight of hand and adventurous storytelling combined to create a thoroughly engaging and entertaining spectacle, not to mention the occasional moment which seemed so unlikely and utterly impossible that minds were literally blown. It was certainly necessary to pay attention throughout and the evening was the closest I've come to a brain gymnastic work-out in a long while. I was still pondering how on earth he managed to devise and complete a full NYTimes crossword in front of our very eyes at the end of the show, where the final filled grid also managed to incorporate clues shouted at the beginning of the evening arranged diagonally across the puzzle. “How the hell did he do that?” seemed to be a very commonly expressed comment as patrons were leaving. Congratulations Mr Kwong. Job done.