Mark Guest - Believe

Calder's Bookshop

Two shows at the Phoneix Arts Club on 22nd & 29th September

Book tickets

Photo credit: Daz Gale

{PR Gifted tickets}

We’re secreted in a theatre hideaway behind the bookcase at Calder’s Bookshop. 40 or so lucky people, exercising our minds for an hour, under the energetic direction and close-up analysis of Mark Guest, who is comfortably embodying his ‘new mentalist in town’ billing.

He is open about BELIEVE being a tribute to his best friend, DJ Luke Hope, and his own belief in a cure for cancer being found one day. His forthcoming shows will raise funds for Guy’s Cancer Charity as part of this mission.

In our ‘magic lock-in’, with music and wall signs and activities to enjoy ourselves, we feel safe in his warm and inclusive conversation. We watch him. He reads us.

We hear he started magic when he was 8, worked as a professional magician at 12, and is now coming back to today’s style of the craft after a 21-year stint in the corporate world. This, following his recent bereavement and realisation that you can and should pursue whatever’s your passion, whatever your age.

And it is evident that he thrives on this live act. The fact that he can, on our watch, without us noticing, work us all out. That he can provide answers to what we were thinking. Solutions to what we weren’t thinking. Objects when you least expect them. Some truly amazing feats. I am still wondering how he made it all happen.

Mesmerised you may be - but Mark doesn’t linger. Or stand still. He’s moving the whole time. He sits and he writes and he draws too. He takes us into another story or another challenge and by the end, more than a dozen of us have engaged with Mark, interacting directly in some way with his mental agility circuit. And at other times, everyone is involved and participating, keeping a watchful eye on the performer and the keen volunteers.

I’m sure nobody envies him at this moment though. It can’t be easy being the focus of attention while plotting your next move. But that made him believable. And if he worked as hard and as positively as he did here for us in his corporate life, they must really be missing him in the office. And his suits.

Although Mark’s two dates at the Phoenix Arts Club on 22 & 29 September are sold out, Mark Guest is a name to watch out for in the burgeoning art of mentalism.