Chris Hare – The Mind Boggler (Laughing Horse @ The Temple Bar, Brighton)

Chris Hare, The Mind Boggler, presents his fascinating mentalist and mind reading skills in a show that is unique, funny and interactive. Can he guess your card? Can he guess your birthday?  Hare shows an exquisite and quite remarkable talent that will leave you stunned and open mouthed.

The show takes place in a small, intimate setting but even this looks large as there are only a handful of people in the audience. At the start, the Mind Boggler first introduces himself, before trying, unsuccessfully, to rustle up a few more people from the bar downstairs to join his show.

At first we think that the small audience might be a disadvantage but it actually works to our benefit, as it means we are treated to a personal, almost private, show which gives us a much more intense experience, allows us to have supreme concentration and also to interact with the show at every step of the way.

Hare starts off with a trick where he guessed a member of the audiences name by getting him to chose two cards totally at random from a deck, he then had to open a book in accordance with the numbers on the cards chosen. He was asked to read the first word on the chosen page aloud and, as he did, the astonishment was clear in his expression – the word that the Mind Boggler had asked him to read out turned out to be the man’s own first name, printed right there, on that page.

This fantastic start to the show leaves a stunned audience, who are totally amazed at his ability and suddenly very engaged with this incredible act. We all applaud with very obvious surprised expressions on our faces and the show carries on in a similar vein from there, with one astounding feat of skill after another.

Other tricks included guessing cards picked at random, words chosen from a list, the audience member’s birthdays and one of the most impressive acts where the Mind Boggler correctly guesses the words in a book from a page selected at random. There were so many surprises along the way it would be impossible to list them all, and may actually spoil the fun for future audiences.

His tricks are all presented in an interesting way with audience participation, props and the odd funny joke keeping it really interesting and engaging. It is a real shame the audience is small as those who were not there missed out on a truly fantastic, “mindboggling” act by an extremely talented Mentalist. 

Hare is a witty and engaging man, with an act that is guaranteed to leave his audience stunned and surprised. This, little known, act is one not to be missed!