Midway through his new Fringe show, local-boy-done-well Colin Cloud shares a story from his armchair about how he became a mind-reader. It’s a card trick his grandfather used to perform on him as a boy, over and over again, and it set him on course from a shy boy growing up in Harthill to an internationally renowned mentalist with his own show on the Las Vegas strip. What makes the moment special is that Cloud then shares the secret to the trick with the audience (“promise not to tell!”), that cracks open the door into how he weaves his particular brand of magic on audiences.
It is but a crack, mind you. You are still left bamboozled and amazed throughout his show at how he manages to somehow pluck random thoughts from the minds of random strangers. Often several minds at the same time.
This is the first time I’ve seen Cloud perform live, having read rave reviews of previous shows (Colin Cloud: Kills, Colin Cloud: Exposé, Colin Cloud: Dare), and seen his act online.
He did not disappoint. The show amazes and amuses. Cloud cuts something of a mercurial figure in his bechained, tweed waistcoat and tie, pointy shoes and wild wiry hair. His fast-moving energy and quick-witted repartee with audience members makes the show thoroughly engaging.
Cloud offers other insights into his background, the Consequences of certain acts in his life - like the disturbing prank call on his family by a stranger who had detailed knowledge about them.
In a tribute to a big influence in his life, he asks three different audience members to select a word at random from a Sherlock Holmes novel, and then correctly deduces the word each has chosen.
In another trick involving i-phone PINs, he not only unlocks an audience member’s phone, but manages to get the audience member to unlock the mentalist's own phone.
Count me as one of those that he calls the “sceptics” in the audience. Who believes in mind-reading? Yet, his powers of observation and deductive skills, developed in a previous career in forensic science, are scarily keen. When combined with his personable showmanship, his deceptions and trickery are highly credible.
Snap lighting changes used for comic effect at some points suggest that the show is planned down to a tee, and even the mistakes seem to have happened for a purpose, bolstering the illusion of Cloud’s supernatural capabilities.
I took my sons to the show - ages 11 and 15. They are tough customers to please, having already seen a few festival shows that fell short of their high expectations. This time, both young minds were blown. Verdict from both: “Five out of five.” They left wanting to come back another night “to work it out”. Ha ha.
The show has some moderately risque elements in it like Cloud’s teasing asides aimed at adults in the audience, and one stunned audience-member uttered a memorable expletive. But the show was otherwise child-friendly, with indeed a youngster coming on stage to take part in a mind-read trick.
Many members of the audience participate in the show, making it extremely unlikely that they are all planted. Cloud also takes great care to randomize the selection of audience members to come on stage (at one point involving a Holmes-like hat) and, like a juggler, performs the same trick on multiple people at the same time.
A nice touch is the way that Cloud works other Fringe performers into the show for his final act - you can see his Selfies with a different (again, apparently random) performer outside the McEwan Hall each night on his Instagram account.
When we got home, my boys played the card trick that they had just learned from Colin Cloud on their mum. She was amazed and baffled. The cherry on the cake of a great night of magic out.
Runs til 26 August, 5.30pm and 7.30pm