Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Mischief Theatre - the company behind the Play That Goes Wrong and other productions – have not built their lucrative empire on subtlety and nuance. Their work is big and slapsticky, with jokes that may sometimes be obvious, but are executed with an irreverent sense of fun, as well as a slickness and elan that’s impressive.

So it is with Mind Mangler, a new show featuring the mentalist from their West End show Magic Goes Wrong. That he is inept yet egotistical, taking himself and his performance far too seriously, very much as expected. But Henry Lewis inhabits this grandiloquent creation effectively, letting the mask slip just a little to become jollier in the audience interactions that set up his tricks. His improv background helps him roll with the unpredictable responses and keeps proceedings witty and nimble. That said, he’s shameless about using some old gags, such as telling one volunteer to ‘empty your mind… that was quick’.

His claims to be able to read minds – alongside some more surreal talents such as ‘taste names’ – inevitably come to nowt. There’s a feeling of diminishing returns when yet another attempt fails, especially when it requires the audience to invest in an involved process of interrogation before its collapse. 

Lewis is joined in his ill-fated endeavours by a sidekick played by Jonathan Sayer, a plant as obvious as a giant redwood, who brings an idiot savant energy to counter Mind Mangler’s ignorant pomposity. It’s the classic double-act dynamic, and their barbed banter is the backbone of this show. 

Meanwhile, it quickly emerges that, off stage, our main man’s life is falling apart. His wife has left him, but he may be able to escape with a promised job on a cruise ship, far less glamorous than he tries to make out. Like everything else, the jeopardy is cartoonish, as very little in this hour even pretends to be real. But it adds another strand of jokes.

One thing that does later prove to be true, however, is Lewis’s ability to pull off some tricks. Once that’s established, there’s a winning uncertainty surrounding each segment: might he actually pull off something reasonably impressive this time around. The odds are against it, but not zero.

Add in some imaginative visual jokes, reliant on Mischief’s trademark high production values, and you have a pantomime-like package stuffed with daft gags that’s great fun and unabashedly mainstream. Your mind will not be blown, or indeed mangled, but it will be tickled…

• Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle is on at the Pleasance Courtyard at 9.30pm

Review date: 22 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard