☆☆☆☆

Andy Boyd can do anything, probably…. Or at least that’s the impression that audiences will get after watching his show The Professional Showoff. A friendly and hilarious performer with a unusual breadth of skills, Boyd presents a range of entertainment feats across the genres of magic, juggling, and robotics.

While all of his routines are fun, the cutest are by far the ones with the robots. Boyd has built himself a robotic assistant—cultural commentary on the role of assistants in historic magic is perhaps implied with a raised eyebrow, but it’s not that kind of show—and this adorable helper successfully performs a magic trick of its own, with Boyd assisting in getting an audience member to participate. Boyd’s juggling and adjacent skills are impressive as well. He opens his show with a series of hoop tricks, and even those who have seen this prop used before will probably see new variations from Boyd. It’s very mildly intimidating for the audience but super cool to watch.

There is of course plenty of magic as well. Boyd’s card tricks are fantastic, and at times these blend with his other skills—as with the robot. Even when he’s just using the cards, the more physical elements of the performance have a flair that reveals his juggling abilities, with the particular skill he brings to these elements. His finale is so impressive that, at the reviewed show, audience members who arrived as strangers clutched each other in amazement.

Boyd gets a significant proportion of the audience involved to varying degrees. Luckily for the audience, they are not asked to come to the stage for any of the mildly intimidating bits, Boyd keeps all the difficult moments for himself. Boyd is a friendly performer and, at least at the reviewed show, seems to attract an especially friendly audience. Many bits of audience participation are performed from the seats, and none of the participation is scary.

Andy Boyd has such an infectiously high energy in The Professional Showoff, and everyone in the audience walks out smiling, looking in higher spirits than when they went in. It’s the kind of medley show audiences would usually expect from a group of performers, but here all done by one exceptionally skilled one. Boyd radiates pure joy. The Professional Showoff is the show to go to for an incredible time and a genuine energy boost.