Returning to Brisbane for the Wonderland Festival, Adelaide hypnotist Isaac Lomman is first and foremost a showman and even looks like the archetypal hypnotist – minus the razor-thin moustache.
While stage hypnosis is nothing new, Isaac takes a different path from the embarrassing, adults-only ‘secret’-revealing shows gracing the stages of casinos and clubs around the world. This is a family show and none of the volunteers are asked to participate in anything risqué.
To start, there are a few warm-up exercises to find out which of the audience members are ripe for ‘going under’. The people who feel they may be open to the suggestion of hypnosis and are willing to take part are then invited on stage. Surprisingly there is a rush to fill the 12 chairs on which the volunteers will sit.
Isaac works with the group to identify who is being influenced by his hypnosis; those that show resistance are asked to return to their seats as “they will have a better experience watching the show than 'being' the show”.
Because this show depends on willing participants, most of the volunteers respond positively to Isaac's suggestions – although some were clearly not ‘in the zone’ and were kindly returned to their place in the audience. Others were certainly under his control as he had them obeying his every command, much to the delight of the audience.
The suggestions themselves are not that imaginative but what is interesting is the differing levels of influence he has over the volunteers.
The results are hilarious, especially watching the participants' reaction when asked to visualise a particular scenario. “When you look up the entire audience will be naked,” he says. The volunteers open their eyes and most don’t know where to look – many shielding their eyes from the confronting sight.
Another highlight is watching a young man stand up, on cue, and begin tap dancing across the stage when a particular piece of music played.
There is also a laugh-out-loud moment where one volunteer creeps across the stage in ‘spy’ mode – hunting for their nemesis and believing he was a latter-day 007 only to return to his seat oblivious to what he had done.
At the end of the show, volunteers get a copy of the video so they can see how they reacted and feel confident they haven’t been subjected to anything untoward or made a complete ass of themselves.
This is a mesmerising show where you need to ‘let go’, throw caution to the wind and join in the fun whether you’re on stage or in the audience. In return you get to spend an hour enjoying the sheer madness of the onstage antics while pondering the astonishing power of the human imagination.
★★★★☆
