By Lucas Heap
Once again, Mischief Theatre are at the Fringe Festival with 3 unique and hilarious shows, including the Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle.
Henry Lewis arrives on stage as the Mind Mangler – a magician and mentalist proudly wearing the medal highlighting his greatest achievement- “UK Magic Society- Under Twelve Competition 1999”. No hint of being a winner..but he took part.
The show starts with a laugh-a-minute section as the Mind Mangler determines the audiences professions and names by smell and taste alone. Obviously, it goes about as wrong as it could, but out of nowhere a genuinely impressive trick is performed. A hint that – ahead- this show won’t solely be about ineptitude and buffoonery.
Jonathan Sayer is introduced as a ‘random’ audience member. To the mind mangler’s question: “can you confirm we have never met?” his hilarious response: “no, we do not live together” is classic Mischief. The two have great on-stage chemistry and you can’t help but smile while they perform and bounce off each other with quick-witted repartee.
Throughout the show, Lewis interacts with the audience, yelling at cocky crowd members who think they can do better and attempting to perfect an audience member’s eyesight with hilarious results. Every act falls apart, highlighting his over-inflated estimation of his abilities.
But of course, any Mischief performance contains cleverness as well as chaos. And some of Lewis’ ‘mind-reading’ feats are genuinely, jaw-droopingly impressive.
For example, he somehow manages to accurately retell some audience members’ most embarrassing moments in startling detail, successfully opens a safe by asking audience members to select random numbers to make up a PIN and retrieves a scroll from it which contains his predictions for the night’s performance – all present and correct. It was a truly magical end to the night.
The Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle is a fantastic show. With great comedic timing and breathtaking moments, it is a must see at this year’s festival.
Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle is on everyday until the 28th August at 21:30 at Pleasance Beyond in the Pleasance Courtyard.
Buy tickets here: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mind-mangler-member-of-the-tragic-circle