All the tricks go wrong but this is still pure magic

Mind Mangler (Apollo Theatre to April 28, then national tour) Verdict: Comedy magic ★★★★☆

USHERS invite us to write a secret on a card and place it in a glass bowl. ‘Prepare to be delighted, astounded and amazed!’ booms a disembodied voice.

A big, shambling bloke with a bushy beard peers at the audience. ‘Think of a colour,’ challenges our host, holding an orange. Such is the mysterious suggestive power of self-aggrandising wannabe mentalist Keith (Henry Lewis, right), aka Mind Mangler.

Silly stand-up meets merry magic in the latest show from the troupe of Magic-Goes-Wrong veterans.

Keith is a joker. But is he actually more than that?

He claims he can ‘smell’ a person’s profession. ‘You at the back, in the dark?’ he sniffs. ‘You’re a theatre usher.’

Not quite Derren Brown, then, but hilarious. Newly divorced Keith’s life is a shambles, off-stage as well as on. Overhead is a locked case, ‘suspended’... just as he is, from the Magic Circle, and he’s banking on someone finding the code which he has lost, along with his car keys.

He is travelling hopefully. International stardom beckons, or so he boasts, after an approach from ‘legendary’ producer Bob Kojak, who has booked him to do a tour of Vegas.

Wholly unsupported by his incompetent stooge (Jonathan Sayer, who is helpfully wearing a T-shirt labelled ‘Audience Member’), Keith hopelessly and obviously blunders his way through dodgy magic tricks. Everything that could possibly go wrong, does.

Keith cues a drum roll and an owl hoots. He gets locked in his vanishing cabinet. ‘Is there anybody there?’ he asks the Ouija board. ‘No,’ comes the reply.

While his spoon refuses to bend, every other metal object on the stage bows.

Then comes the big reveal as brilliantly inept Keith turns miraculous mind-reader, exposing the secret of a random punter.

Prepare to be delighted, astounded and amazed.