★ ★ ★ ★ ★
This year, America's Got Talent finalist Colin Cloud is performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with his new show Dare.
This side of the Atlantic, Colin Cloud is best known perhaps for threatening to reveal Holly Willoughby’s darkest secret during an appearance on This Morning. And back in 2015 during another appearance on the show, Holly begged Colin to “Please do me. Can you just stay and do me.” in a clip which has since (unsurprisingly) gone viral.
It's always difficult when reviewing a show like Dare because you of course do not want to give away anything that happens, because that will ruin it for those who are yet to get to see it.
What won't spoil it for you, is letting you know what happens when you walk in to Dare. You are handed a Colin Could mask and via a video on screen Colin asks you to take a selfie wearing the mask, post it to social media and ask people to reply with the most random word they can.
The pay off for this comes right at the end of the show and believe me when I say it will blow your mind. And that's not the only time my mind was blown. In fact, I'd go as far enough to say that when I left the Pleasance Grand, my head hurt and my jaw ached from all the jaw-dropping I did.
You can't help thinking "How did he do that?", you try to reason with yourself over how he might have done it and as the 750 sellout spilled out of the Grand, they were all doing the same.
Colin Cloud has an incredible hold over his audience, and that's not just because he knows your name, your birthday, your passwords and your deepest darkest secret, it's because he knows how to put on a show.
From the staging, to the lighting, Dare is much more than a guy stood on stage and the most impressive thing I've ever seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He calls himself the real-life Sherlock Holmes and after spending an hour in his company, I'm not going to disagree with him.
With Colin reaching the live finals of America's Got Talent, I wouldn't be surprised if he went on to win and would therefore be too busy to play the Fringe again. At least not for a little while. So go on, I dare you to go and pay Colin Cloud a visit at the Fringe.