2011 Edinburgh Fringe

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Nathan Penlington fuses psychic magic with an obsessive and interactive comic deconstruction of the spoon-bending icon/oddball that we all know and love.

Nathan was born in the late seventies into a world in the grip of Geller mania, but it wasn't until he was given a magic set at the age of eleven (coincidently, Uri's favourite number) that he became interested in the paranormal and the unexplained. This began a lifelong, distant curiosity in the world's most famous psychic, a notorious cultural icon that has produced poetry, novels, board games, crystal jewellery, a folding bike, teddy bears, and a pop album. Meanwhile, Nathan has found work as a bingo caller, writer and, worst of all, a poet.

Uri Geller wrote in 1987: "If I could write a book exposing myself as a fraud and a charlatan I would readily do so. But unfortunately I cannot do this because the things that have happened to me... are real". Uri & Me will make those things - "telepathy, clairvoyance, ESP, dowsing for oil, bending metal" - real for you too. Nathan will demonstrate all of Uri Geller's apparent skills onstage using members of the audience, enabling them, for five minutes at least, to feel the amazing psychic power possessed by Uri Geller. He'll even perform a death-defying motorbike stunt.

It's not that Nathan is Uri Geller's biggest fan; Its not that he sees Uri as an easy target for ridicule; Its a little more complicated than that. What started out as a show about the oddity that is Uri Geller has turned into a peculiar friendship involving disappointing lunches and thirty year old shirts.

During Nathan's time of researching and previewing the show in 2010, Uri Geller caught wind of the show. Uri is famously litigious and attended an early London performance of Uri & Me in the company of his lawyers. But to everyone's surprise, especially Nathan's, Uri didn't press a lawsuit but invited Nathan to lunch at his house. Nathan has taken Uri to meet his mum and dad. In a further twist to the story Uri has recently given Nathan eleven shirts he used to wear in the 1970's at the peak of his fame.

Uri & Me premiered as a commission piece at the London Word Festival in March 2010. It sold out four nights at the Camden Fringe in August 2010. In Oct 2010, it played for two nights at Brighton Comedy Festival. In April 2011, Uri & Me was performed at Christ Church College Oxford, as part of The Times Oxford Literature Festival, and is directed by Tom Bell (Tommy & The Weeks, Delete The Banjax).

Nathan Penlington has performed with the likes of Ricky Gervais, Stewart Lee and John Cooper Clarke and appeared on BBC Radio 1, 3 and 4. His written work has featured in everything from The Journal Of Experimental Fiction to Peaches Geldof's magazine, Disappear Here.