Angus Baskerville credits magic with saving his life. At school he had a torrid time, bullied and branded “naughty” due to then-undiagnosed autism and ADHD. But that all changed when he turned by chance to conjuring – and in this impressively content-packed magic show, he makes a convincing case that his neurodivergence, far from being a disability, is in fact a superpower.

Baskerville purposefully foregrounds that he’s different to the majority, so I’ll follow his lead in this review. There is a noticeable divergence between this show and the Fringe-magic norm: it doesn’t rely on showboating or masterly patter, but instead delivers an uncommonly high number of quality illusions. The focus is largely – though not exclusively – on mind-reading, yet there’s enough variety in how the tricks are dressed to keep each one feeling fresh and new.

One mass-participation trick made us feel we had a superpower of our own – even if it was only the ability to follow a complicated series of instructions – and left the kids in the audience particularly enthralled, while another involving a purse and a banknote had an unexpected twist at its conclusion. Several of the tricks, in fact, gently subverted expectations, and while you may have seen the outlines of some of them before you’ll still be surprised by the execution.

Notably, Baskerville brings technology into his show, with the audience pulling out their phones for a couple of the tricks and one particularly cute foray into social media. (I saw a couple of audience members try to recreate that one afterwards; they discovered it was more complicated than at first it seemed.) One illusion carries a gentle moral, about viewing a diagnosis of autism as an opportunity rather than a problem to be solved, but he rightly doesn’t lay on that message too thickly. He doesn’t need to – it’s a thought that’s embodied by his entire show.

While Baskerville acknowledges he finds conversation challenging, he’s kind and clear with his audience volunteers, and visibly keen to make sure everyone in the crowd has the time they need to follow along. The visible excitement of some younger audience was a genuine joy to observe, but there’s plenty of skill and refinement to engage the grown-ups too. Patter’s overrated – if it’s the magic you care about most, then this is the show for you.