Everything Theatre Reviews, interviews and news for theatre lovers, London and beyond
Take your Pampers mats along for a face-achingly funny, cleverly comedic psychic show that is sure to wow the West End.Summary
Rating
Excellent
Four stars – ‘A Triumph of Theatre Magic’ ‘Unlike any musical I have seen before – captivating’ ‘A salty melange of New Orleans’: this is what people are saying about Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle. Oh wait! That’s the show next door… Nevertheless, what’s a slight slip-up between friends? Let’s keep that four star rating anyway, because this is an absolutely top show that will undoubtedly be wowing the West End for some time to come; utterly ridiculous, yet clever, engaging and much, much more than first appears.
Our host this evening is the Mind Mangler himself (also known as Keith). He is played by the incredible Henry Lewis, who you may know from Magic Goes Wrong, another fabulous Mischief Theatre production. A self-aggrandising, rather crap magician and psychic, he invites us to relish in his magical magnificence, but his performance results in a pathetic pastiche of every dodgy magic show you have ever seen.
Keith is a hilarious character: a magician with no charisma, constantly battling with the audience, who he really needs to have on his side. His audience member participant (played by the amazing Jonathan Sayer) is obviously a plant and gives the game away at every turn. A series of transparently rubbish tricks ensue, bringing howls of laughter, but occasionally there’s a genuinely good one that slips in and suddenly you’re taken aback, rethinking what you’re seeing. The programme reveals that Penn & Teller were integral to developing Magic Goes Wrong, and now it’s all not quite as duff as you might have initially thought. The whole thing is utterly hilarious, leaving the audience choking with laughter and disbelief as the situations become more and more ludicrous.
But that’s not his only skill! The audience is key to this show, and the interaction with them is brilliant and skilfully executed, simultaneously livestreamed onto the stage so we can see ourselves as part of the madness. There’s a tingling tension as Keith picks people to come on stage, or predicts our secrets in a mindreading section that would put Psychic Sally to shame. On the night, this was perhaps a little prolonged as the psychic connection took a short while to make its way through – the only part of the evening where there was a slight dip in energy. But the ultimate payoff in hilarity was completely worth the wait.
Sayer is impressively silly and speedy, playing multiple daft roles and popping up in different costumes around the auditorium. The relationship between him and Lewis is magic itself, as they navigate the precipices of corpsing, or together reveal Keith’s pathetic background story. The characters’ sadly dysfunctional friendship unexpectedly adds an incisive, warm and beautifully human element to the otherwise laughable narrative. They do say there’s no comedy without tragedy, right?
There are so many highlights to this show, including the whacky and somewhat inexplicable ‘Quick Fire Jesus’ sketches set against some genuinely baffling magical achievements. The thoughtful detail is massively impressive, and absolutely everything ties together really neatly, with recurring themes threading intricately through the evening– even spontaneously intertwining with ad-libbed content contributed by the audience: I mean, who has even heard of a shovelnose guitarfish, let alone being able to impersonate one? Job well done there. Layer upon layer of laugh out loud comedy and cleverness makes this show a hugely humorous hit!
I left the theatre with my whole face aching from laughing, and I fully expect next time I see this show as it wows the West End they will be putting Pampers mats on all the seats just in case…
Written by: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields
Directed by: Hannah Sharkey
Magic Consultant: Ben Hart
Video Design by: Gillian Tan
Lighting Design by: David Howe
Sound Design by: Helen Skiera
Set Design by: Sara Perks
Costume Design by: Roberto Surace
Composed by: Steve Brown
Produced by: Mischief Theatre, Kenny Wax, Stage Presence & Kevin McCollum
Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle runs at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue until Sunday 28 April. Find out more and book tickets here.
