Start with a few cold-reading tricks, dash in some sleight of hand, add in a heavy dose of comedy on top and you’ve got the recipe to make any mind-reading show come out well. David Terrence has all of the right ingredients and, whilst you’re not going to see anything new, he certainly delivers a solid, entertaining show.
An enjoyable hour, with a lovable host
If you’re ever in Covent Garden, spend half an hour watching the street entertainers and you’ll quickly realise that the routines are built out of expectation, rather than delivery. Terrence has this figured out and, with the addition of his easy-going personality, quickly won the audience over, as they lapped up each of the mind-reading routines. While he doesn’t quite have the showmanship, he knows how to please a crowd.
Terrence is comfortable with his audience and was quick-witted enough to deliver amusing responses to his volunteers. Magic may have moved on in the last 30 years, but Terrence happily harkens back to the golden age of TV magic. As a show, everything was a few decades old: I haven’t heard the old chestnut about Germans and their beach towels for many-a-year.
Terrence also never really tried to sell the idea that he has ‘genuine’ mind-reading abilities. A routine where he used echo-location to determine an object whilst blindfolded wasn’t fooling anyone and many of the tricks have been performed better many times before. Ultimately, Terrence doesn’t seem to know whether he’s wanting to perform a magic or a mind-reading show.
An enjoyable hour, with a lovable host, but Terrance’s natural home is on the after-dinner speaker circuit, or doing corporate gigs, where his mixture of comedy and mind-reading will no doubt be well received.
