If your idea of a great night out is having memories implanted in and removed from your head, revealing personal information about yourself without saying a word, and adopting the skills of a psychic medium, then The Human Conditioning, a brand new play-cum-psychological magic show from Watford magicians Roelof Stammeijer, Ben Pearl (who started performing magic together when they were pupils at Watford Boys) and Jonathan Bitel is right up your street. Rosy Moorhead tries to get into the head of Chipperfield neuropsychologist, medical student and cold reader Roelof.

Tell me about the show, The Human Conditioning.

It’s something a little bit novel. The conceit of the show is that you’re attending a lecture from me and Ben, who will take you through the history of the mind by performing demonstrations on you – so lots of audience participation – of different aspects of mentalism, the side of magic that’s concerned with influence and reading people. Ben is much more of an influencer while I’m more of a reader. But as the show goes on, it will become a little bit darker – but I’m not going to give anything away!

What are some of the ‘tricks’ you’ll be showing us?

I can only tease! A lot of magic you see, if you learn how it’s done you kick yourself and go ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of that’. The nice thing about the stuff we’re doing is that if you knew how they were done you become more intrigued because it becomes more complex and more detailed. But I can tell you that I’ll be demonstrating ‘reading’ people – working out what people are thinking by the unconscious cues they give off – as well as implanting memories through hypnosis, and getting someone up on stage and teaching them some of these things.

Is mentalism, or psychological magic, as light-hearted as it might at first seem?

I think the topic itself can be quite light-hearted but it’s actually a little bit scary. I think the idea that as you walk along the street you might be giving away an incredible amount of personal information about the sort of person you are, your life’s desires etc, to someone with the right skills, is quite frightening. We start with little bits of prediction and things and then, as you get deeper into it and learn the sorts of things you can reveal, you see how dark it is – and that lent itself naturally to a dark twist in the show.

  • The Human Conditioning is at Greenwood Theatre, Weston Street, Southwark on May 1 and 2, 7pm. Details: thehumanconditioning.com