Theatre Review: The Mindreading Experiments @ The Bread and Roses Theatre

What to expect from someone who claims to read minds? Well let’s face it; a lot of scepticism. But Tomas McCabe, the 23-year-old mind reader, is about to rock the world of sceptics.

Image courtesy of Tomas McCabe

The show begins with a voice-over and a short film about the Creery sisters, five young girls in Derbyshire who were believed to have mind-reading abilities in the 1880s. From this example of mindreading studies, Tomas takes us back to the here and now with a lovely introduction to his one man show and his interest in mind-reading.

Through the show, he shares some of his secrets as to how he can guess what his audience members are thinking. He starts out by guessing if a person is lying, and by this determine what they are thinking. With a background in psychology, he explains the simpler workings of body language and other ways that people unconsciously determine if another person is lying.

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Talking about the cues of the body and the face makes complete sense, but then McCabe starts talking about intuition and he moves further into his area of specialism, where the tricks aren’t easily explained. As he randomly picks members of the audience for the experiences, with ease and charm, he makes sure to pick as many different people as possible.

And as I myself got picked to come on stage, I can tell you that it isn’t staged. Five times he did different card tricks, asking me to think of a card, and five times he managed to guess the symbol in my mind. After days of wondering “How the hell did he do that?” I’m still none the wiser, and must say Tomas McCabe has some pretty amazing skills. This he also showed in Britain Got Talent, where he was a contestant.

The show itself is entertaining, and Tomas’ enthusiasm is very compelling. He ends the show by talking about the everyday mind manipulation we receive from social media, the internet and commercials. This is a great way to take us from the 1880’s experiments and back to our everyday life.

With some technical improvements, this will for sure be a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. If you’re there, definitely go and see it, and maybe you can tell me how he did it.

Tomas' show will be at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, and tickets can be pre-ordered here.