Review by Steve Bennett

Every mind-reading act relies on its volunteers: And Peter Campbell-Wells has an odd selection today. There’s the woman whose grasp of English isn’t up to the tasks demanded of her; the man who submitted his photo ID card to a collection of supposedly anonymous personal objects, making it rather easy to pinpoint its owner; and the woman who blanched at the idea of licking an envelope for fear the gum might not be vegetarian. Only in Brighton…

No amount of showmanship will ever transform the upstairs of a pub into a Vegas showroom, but the Campbell-Wells battles valiantly – even if some of the tricks still don’t get the reception they deserve. Guessing the playing cards punters chose at random is still impressive, even at a two-out-of-three success rate, yet the reaction was muted at best.

Though billed as a ‘mentalist’, this affable Geordie is more Paul Daniels than Derren Brown, with set pieces that mostly appear to be conjuring tricks rather than mind-control: producing, for example, a crisp banknote from the one envelope he had, rather than the four scattered around the room.

In other instances, he can’t quite overcome the scepticism: a limited selection of home-made tarot cards are presumably so carefully ordered that only one possible outcome is mathematically possible, and the audience’s unfamiliarity with the props further diminishes its impact.

Much of the show features tricks the like of which you’re likely to have seen before –if not necessarily up close – but he executes them smoothly. But it’s his remarkable finale that moves the show up a league, with a complex set-up involving randomly chosen numbers, a word picked by chance from the dictionary, and a sealed safe that all tie together in a dazzling pay-off that will genuinely flummox you.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Brighton Fringe, May 2009

Review date: 1 Jan 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett