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Hypnotist Matt Hale – Funbelievable! 90s Rewind

 
Victor Black Review by Victor Black 3 Published: 18 Aug 2025 Gilded Balloon Patter House Show Dates: 30 Jul 2025-25 Aug 2025

Matt Hale is becoming known as the party hypnotist for the Fringe, and this year his show is all about the party decade that was the 1990s. Before the show starts, we’re welcomed in with a mood-setting playlist of some of the decade’s bangers. He opens the show shirking a traditional suave suit in favour of his own now-traditional colourful jumpsuit and sets the scene with some party moves and singalongs that get us in the mood.

Hale promises, and delivers, a 90s party

After briefly discussing the nature of trance and running a quick suggestibility test on the audience, he invites us up. Twenty volunteers go up and I’m among the half who do not succumb to his quick induction, a couple of the instructions of which I found a little unclear. But he had nine of my counterparts comfortably under his spell – a couple of whom showed potential to become memorable, but standout moments were scarce.

The next 30 to 40 minutes gave us a journey through the 90s with plenty of dancing, instruments and random escapades and… wait, no, actually it was pretty much all dancing. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to dance to in the 90s and nothing felt out of place, but there’s also a lot of other things to take advantage of within the decade, and hypnosis gives Hale complete creative control to demonstrate the range of phenomena achievable under trance.

He promises, and delivers, a 90s party, yet it felt like a wasted opportunity to have more than half of it focused on something any extrovert would do even if not induced. I prefer my hypnotists to prove to their audience that the volunteers are truly under the spell with at least a couple of skits that can only be achieved under trance. As an example, one man who became Liam Gallagher was given the suggestion to get the crowd singing along with Wonderwall and get angry at anyone who didn’t participate. Hale got the singalong, but the volunteer never showed any negative emotions to his crowd, and wasn’t reminded to do so.

My highlight was having girl talk in Scatman language, culminating in her scatting to the Fresh Prince theme – finally, a standout Fringe moment.

There’s no doubt that the audience loved it, and may have even preferred the party atmosphere to a more varied display of references or psychological exploration. If you want a fun, upbeat hypnosis show then this is going to be the one for you – it’s just a shame that the volunteers aren’t given the opportunity to demonstrate the full extent of what their depth of trance could really attain.

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The Blurb:

Hyp Me Baby One More Time! The unmissable smash-hit comedy hypnotist is back with a 90s party hypnoshow! Multiple sell-out Fringe runs, 150 million+ views online. Enjoy from stage or audience – you choose. All-ages friendly. 'The laughter is uncontrollable!' ***** (FringeFeed.com.au). 'Funfilled show!' ***** (One4Review.co.uk). 'Laugh until your sides hurt!' ***** (WeekendNotes.com). 'Rollicking good time' ***** (SeeDoEatReview.com). 'Spectacular silliness! Absolute feelgood must-see show' ****½ (XPressMag.com.au). Hypnotist Matt Hale is a multi-award winner, seen on Best Shows, Top 10s and Picks of the Fringe.