Jake Mace
Is it a show? Is it some unusual form of social experiment, pushing the boundaries of what we’ll do for a person just to get a laugh? Is it just a man, with a powerpoint, reciting numbers for an hour in front of drunk people at one in the morning? It’s all of those things and so much more. Vinay Sagar invites us into his mind palace, where he’s memorised a ridiculous number of digits of Pi using celebrities, actions, and places to anchor his mind, otherwise known as mnemonics. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Sagar has used his impressive memory to prove himself to a room of strangers in the early hours of the morning.
As we walk in, Sagar invites us to write up a number of ‘punishments’ for if he slips up on a number. We elect from the audience someone to click through his presentation, who also acts essentially as the hand of God, as even when Sagar sometimes get the numbers right they can still make him slip up by running the timer down. It’s up to us, the audience, to decide whether Sagar’s punishments are fair, whether the clicker is doing their job correctly, and precisely what we want to put him through if he can’t remember one of the digits.
Sagar is an impressively commanding presence for someone who’s job it is to essentially be as passive as possible. His dry delivery and quick wit serves him along the way, as he jabs and spars with audience members who want to subject him to various forms of misery. He will do just about anything if the audience eggs him on – from on-stage kisses with audience members, through to reciting Abba hits, playing an audience member’s YouTube videos in the background throughout the entire show, and downing shots or pints if he’s so commanded. An ominous pie awaits the end if Sagar doesn’t meet his target, the final, slapstick punishment…
What really captures your attention is how much whimsy he puts into the whole thing. The set up essentially means that for every six digits he’s assigned a celebrity, doing some form of action, in a place or setting. He has to remember those settings to unlock the digits in his mind, which he’s memorised by associating them with the celebrity, action, and setting. Sagar balances charisma and painstaking effort with a willingness to do anything that ends up almost deftly with the audience getting on side with him. He charms you into believing in him, even though the set up is about as ludicrous as you can get.
It’s silly. It’s smart. It’s not somewhere in between, it’s something else, and Sagar carries you with him till the nail-biting end, as he attempts the impossible, and finishes with the crowd cheering him on just as much as they are enjoying subjecting him to wacky penalties.
Recommended Drink: Has to be an apple pie shot, surely?
You can catch 10,000 Digits of Pi every night at different PBH Free Fringe venues on Niddry Street. Tickets are available through the EdFringe Box Office.
Phoebe Bakker
