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Many magicians at the Edinburgh Fringe yearn to grow their shows to the Las Vegas level. Colin Cloud, rockstar mentalist, is the hometown (adjacent) boy who actually achieved that, and then returned for a victory lap with his new show Hoax.

Cloud may have travelled far and wide since his first appearance at the Fringe, but while has material has grown in flash and glamor, there are elements that he has been true to since the very beginning, and attendees will recognize in this year’s offering. In fact, if his opening intro isn’t word for word what it has been for the last decade, it follow the patter structure at least closely enough to be remembered as familiar. One thing that has been abandoned over the time, however, is his urgent self-classification. Cloud no longer works hard to define himself as the ‘modern Sherlock Holmes’, with the word Sherlock dropped only once in the show, and not even really in reference to himself. He also underplays the concept of mentalism itself, as if intending not to be simply a performer in a certain category, but a category unto himself. And he very well may be correct on this front. Hoax is performed in one of the largest venues at the Edinburgh Fringe, and if it’s not selling out nightly it is surely coming damn close.

Mentalism, which indeed Hoax is whether it’s proclaimed or not, is a difficult sort of magic. The most compelling aspect of it is that instead of working with obvious visual props, it relies on attendees’s convictions of the unpenetrability of their own minds. For the individuals who are used as participants, the amazement is heightened by how personal it feels to have one’s own thoughts accessed. But, this hyper personalization means that the performer has to work that much harder to make each effect interesting to those not involved. After all, we rarely know many of the other 700+ audience members, so why would we care about their thought? Well, because Colin Cloud makes us care, of course. Cloud is a pro at keeping his crowd engaaged every step of the way, employing a ‘jovial aside’ method to directly and humourously address the audience as a whole even when he is in the midst of intructions and interactions with an individal. For the participant experience, Cloud runs a tight ship, letting those he calls upon show enough personality to give him something to play off, but not enough to steal or derail the show. At the reviewed permance, no particpant is particulaly memorable, and that’s how it should be.

While Cloud does follow the trend of having a certain theme per show, with this year’s being of course hoaxes, this is mostly superficial. While a little time and some segues utilize this theme, it appears to exist as a simple skeleton to underly the tricks of the performance. Cloud doesn’t really have anything paticularily profound he wants to share about Hoaxes, he just needs it for the clickbait factor. But once the crowd fills in, his performance is strong enough that no one particularily cares.

There is a good reason that Colin Cloud is selling out show after show with Hoax. He has a winning formula, a charismatic personality, and the skill to back them both up. And more importantly, Cloud has put in the work to grow his act from little rooms in small venues to tour internationally, star in Vegas, and still return home to honor the same audiences that put him on that path in the first place. If you want to see an exemplary mentalism show performed by the most reliably consistent performer in the business, Hoax is the place to be.