REVIEW: THE MAGIC WAND EXPERIENCE

Spells, vomiting unicorns and boozy potions at The Wizard Exploratorium

A venue where your child becomes a wizard and uses their new powers to make you magical cocktails? This place exists and THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Obviously, it’s in Soho, at a bright pink, five-storey town house in Greek Street called The Wizard Exploratorium.

Armed with our wandless child, we headed there to be greeted by the Master Wandmaker, who asked us to choose a wooden medallion each, which would determine whether we were dark, light or earthly magical sprites. My daughter and I selected dragon and snake medallions, because evil sorcery runs in the family.

The wandmaker led us up winding, narrow staircases illuminated by flashes from rainbow-coloured clouds and into the dark and theatrical Wizard Workshop, full of curiosities, where we were each assigned our own wandmaking desk.

And in a delicious mix of theatre, science, design (and obviously, magic) the interactive wandmaking experience begins. We select wands, choose magical oils to anoint them with, learn spells which banish gremlins and cause smoke, flickering candles, jets of magical light and noises to erupt around us.

The final piece of magic involves touching sacred moon, sun and star symbols on our desks with the wands in a particular order, to cause secret drawers to explode from our desks, containing our new wand carry cases to safely transport them home without accidentally turning fellow tube passengers into lizards.

We headed back downstairs, past tables of newly-qualified wizards using wands to bubble and brew afternoon teas, to the ground floor for some boozy potion alchemy.

Here, the wands can be used to dispense sweets from a colourful candy wall. Our daughter also discovered she could use her wand to make a unicorn vomit mocktails into a glass for her.

Now, it was time for our own drinkable elixirs, using molecular mixology and dark arts. Our daughter assisted, which meant I could claim my cocktail drinking was top, educational parenting. First up was the Dragon’s Breathe - strawberry syrup, fresh lime juice and white rum topped with magical (cinammon-like) dust, which my daughter grabbed in fistfuls from a small cauldron, and then ignited to form a dramatic ball of fire.

We followed this with the Bubbling Shot of Death, a neon green, lime, lemon, Midori melon and vodka concoction, which produced vast plumes of smoke until the last drop had been glugged. My kind of magic.

And when we finally dragged our daughter away, we found the only downside to the experience was that it was all so convincing, she had a crushing disappointment on the way home, when she found her fancy new wand was incapable of turning me into a giant rabbit.

Wizard Exploratorium, The Magic Wand Experience, 26 Greek Street, London, W1D 5DE.

For adult wizards and child wizards aged 5+. £35 per person and includes a wand to take home.

Magical drinks can be purchased for an additional cost.

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