BWW Reviews: LUKE JERMAY: SIXTH SENSE, Leicester Square Theatre, July 9 2013
He just walks on to the stage and starts asking questions - "Did we come to the show because we do believe in mind-reading and want to be impressed or because we don't believe in mind-reading and what to catch him out?" He's rather an unprepossessing figure, the exotic tattoos being offset somewhat by the plain black shirt and plain Essex vowels. But then the questions turn into something rather less benign, rather less chummy and the atmosphere in the room curdles just a little.
And that is what really matters in a show like this. At a distance (eg through a television screen) Luke Jermay: Sixth Sense might not look much - sure, there's a bit of Derren Brown, a bit of David Blaine, but there's none of the PT Barnum old style showmanship that both those magicians trade in, albeit in their own ways. Jermay sounds and looks like one of us - and then he starts doing outrageous things that are inexplicable - over and over again. And it's in the uncomfortable shifting in seats, the dread fear that wells up inside that he might just pick you next, the feeling that he really can just look at you and know what you're thinking - that makes the show work. And the more you think, "What if he knows that I once did..." the more that thought persists and the more likely you think it that he'll just tell everyone.
This isn't a hypnotism show and there's much more tease than actual embarrassment (though Jermay leaves its threat just wafting in the air, the better to rack up the tension), so there's nothing to "fear". Except, maybe, the nagging feeling that there are people with a Sixth Sense who can, if not via the supernatural, then by the little "tells" we all display, divine what is inside our heads - good, bad and ugly.
Luke Jermay: Sixth Sense continues at the Leicester Square Theatre until 13 July.
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