Unlike some mentalists, Chris Cox repeatedly denies having any mystical powers, assuring us that he’s accomplishing all his mind-reading effects through a magician’s skills of misdirection, influence and body-language reading. If anything, this makes his tricks even more impressive, since they are openly the product of masterful skill and technique and if you might occasionally guess how he does it – he has a few giveaway “tells” of his own – there is still enough mystification to make for a fully entertaining hour.
And so when he guesses a card just from the holder’s giveaway twitches, or somehow knows what audience members have drawn on their sketch pads, or invites the audience to invent credits for an imaginary film, only to have them appear on a DVD trailer someone has been holding since the show’s opening, we can delight in the surprise, even as he reminds us it’s all a trick. Adding to the show’s fast-moving fun are the 22-year-old’s amiable personality and his clever comic interplay with a pre-recorded video version of himself, who is almost as good a magician as he.
