Straight off the bat, Lawrence Leung made it clear to us that Very Strange Things was no ordinary comedy show. So different that I found myself asking, ‘Is this guy a comedian or a wizard?’
Using the skills and tricks he discovered on his one man hit TV show Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure, Leung explored his obsessions from ghosts to Rubik’s Cubes. Much to my disappointment however, there was nothing about break dancing. You’d think asking questions such as “how cynical are you on a scale of one to Richard Dawkins?” or statements such as, “I’m not a psychic, I’m a Jedi” would only reach a very niche kind of audience, but as I looked around, there is no way you could categorize this Thursday night crowd.
Leung started off the show with a test of our psychic powers, jumping in with a classic “put up your hands if you knew I was gonna say that?” using the ESP experiment “created by parapsychologist Bill Murray in the documentary Ghostbusters”. The show showed a series of experiments, usually picking on the audience member who looked at the floor the hardest as his subject. He was so confident that he’d get them right, even promising to pledge $20 to Donald Trump’s campaign if he didn’t. He didn’t disappoint, even working out one relatively pissed off woman’s ATM pin number (and yes he showed us the pin).
Things took a slightly melodramatic turn at the end of the show. Promising to show us the secrets to his tricks, Leung told us to either close or open our eyes. Naturally, I left mine open and watched as he solved the secrets, leaving me to think “No shit – how didn’t I know that? How bloody stupid am I?” Funeral music was then played as Leung asked the biggest philosophical question for every sci-fi nerd over the age of 25: “Are you a Scully or a Mulder? Just remember there’s an explanation for everything”.
BY ROCHELLE BEVIS
