Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle – Apollo Theatre, London

Writers: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields

Director: Hannah Sharkey

Mischief Theatre of Goes Wrong fame takes on the genre of mentalism and it doesn’t take a mind-reader to guess the kind of shenanigans that ensue.

Henry Lewis plays Mind Mangler, winner of the Magic Circle’s 1999 under-20s competition and newly divorced. He’s excited though, because a new manager has put in money for new sets and lights, booked him a tour around the country and even found him a spot in Las Vegas. It’s a rather easy character for Lewis, similar to the characters played in the other Goes Wrong shows, someone with a veneer of confidence which is easily shattered, showing the growling frustration beneath. Jonathan Sayer is also cast as his Goes Wrong type as the stooge who mucks up the act.

There are some other Goes Wrong elements, sound cues that are mixed up, lost props, projection mistakes and a bar of faulty lights. However, where Mind Mangler works best is where it steers away from the old formulas. There are moments where the acts of mentalism on show actually go right, though not always in the ways expected. The show goes through different kinds of mentalist-type shtick, from mind-reading, to ouija, hypnotism and spoon-bending and there’s an increasing tension in each one that the trick may actually be pulled off. When it does succeed, the audience gasps, leading the Mind Mangler to shame his audience for being surprised.

The most successful part of the evening, in this regard, is the segment where the Mind Mangler guesses secrets from the audience. On entering, each audience member has been given a slip, where they write their name and a secret and put it in a ballot box. These slips are then taken out, the name of the audience member given and Lewis has to divine what that secret is. Whether all the slips read are plants, or whether some are genuinely deduced, it all leads to a great payoff.

Other parts use quick gags, whether it is the ‘speedy Jesus’ segments where Lewis performs some miracles of Jesus in quick time or the game of chess against a supercomputer. The hypnotism section leads to some easy gags about pretending to be animals, but the audience members’ choice of a shovel-nosed guitarfish becomes an enjoyable running joke.

The audience interaction in the show is terrific, with both Lewis and Sayer riffing on the audience responses and heckles very well. They give the show a set of callbacks and themes that feel individual to each performance. This being press night, there are lots of gags about reviewers and the manager of the Aldwych Theatre (who was in the audience) becomes the butt of a number of jokes.

While Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle isn’t a revolutionary or even particularly original production, it is well-scripted, well-performed and very funny.

Runs until 28 April 2024