Durham Fringe Festival 2026
Heist: How to steal a masterpiece
Chris Cook
Genre: Magic and Mentalism
Venue: Assembly Rooms Theatre
Festival: Durham Fringe Festival
Low Down
The mastermind. The conman. The inside guy. We’re assembling a team. We’re doing a heist. Are you in? From magician and storyteller Chris Cook comes a show full of comedy and misdirection about audacious cons and daring thefts.
Review
How to Steal a Masterpiece promises comedy, misdirection and a story of theft, and for the most part, it delivers exactly that kind of good natured criminality.
Cook is, first and foremost, a showman, and that’s the beating heart of this piece. He has an easy, confident presence, the sort that makes you feel like a co-conspirator rather than a spectator, and it’s clear within minutes that the room is his.
Audience participation is used generously throughout, and there’s never a lull in willing volunteers, He also knows when to hold back: nobody is kept on stage a beat longer than the trick needs, and the interaction stays light and tasteful rather than being milked for a safe laugh.
Cook’s misdirection is sharp too, consistently steering your eye away from exactly where the trick is actually happening, so that the “aha” always arrives a half second later than you expect. The writing has some genuinely clever touches, with callbacks planted early that quietly pay off later, rewarding anyone paying proper attention.
There’s an honesty worth naming here: this still feels like a show finding its final shape. The bones of something genuinely enjoyable are all present and correct, but a few moments don’t yet land with the weight they’re clearly reaching for.
Chief among them is the big reveal at the end, the moment the whole heist is supposedly building towards. As it stands, it doesn’t quite have the scale or the surprise to match the anticipation Cook so carefully builds beforehand. Given how much care goes into the setup, the payoff deserves to hit just as hard, and at the moment it’s a step behind the rest of the show.
None of this is a knock on Cook’s ability, which is evidently there in spades. It’s more a note on pacing and structure than performance, and it’s the kind of thing that tends to sharpen with more runs in front of an audience. There’s a stronger, tighter version of this show sitting just underneath the one currently on stage, and it feels close.
