Scary, but in a good way. (Derren Brown - Live)

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Product:	Derren Brown - Live
Date:	06/04/03 (1479 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very cool, Gets into your mind, Cute goatee - not at all satanic as some have claimed!

Disadvantages: One night only per theatre!

This is a review of Derren Brown: Live which I watched at the Queen’s Theatre in Barnstaple on April 4th 2003. The show is touring the country for the next few months and I think almost all the tickets are now sold out. This review is not for people who want everything in the show to be a surprise so if you are going to see it and don’t want to know what will happen then stop reading! Some areas will be vague as the audience was asked not to reveal information about the second half of the show!

Introduction

Derren Brown is unbelievably cool. You may not have heard of him (where have you been?) so I will give you a brief introduction. Derren Brown uses “psychological magic” – no pulling rabbits out of hats for this guy! He does not claim to be psychic, just that he can get inside people’s heads. If you have seen any of his shows on Channel 4 then you will know what he does – he can guess what people are thinking, influence their behaviour without them realising and basically do really cool stuff! In the TV show he experiments on the public a lot – he tells people their pin numbers just by getting them to think about them, he convinces a bookie to pay out on a losing ticket, wins a lot of money at blackjack and acts as a human lie detector. Very cool.

The Show

I paid £11.50 for my ticket as I am a student so I saved a whole £1 off the normal cost! Wow! I booked early and got a seat in the middle of the second row. There is a lot of audience participation and I admit I was hoping to be picked (alas I was not). The show started at 7.45pm with the theatre sold out – all 693 seats were full. It kicked off with Derren’s disembodied voice getting a member of the audience to go on stage and get a ball of paper. This was then thrown around from person to person to pick a random “volunteer”. They then had to choose one of three shapes on an easel on stage. The ball of p

aper was then opened to reveal some writing – saying that the person who was reading it would be a tall, young woman who would have chosen the red circle. All correct! With the accompanying applause Derren appeared on stage.

After this the whole audience took part with everyone holding a £1 coin behind their backs. They then had to choose one hand to hold it in. Most chose the hand Derren was encouraging them to with subtle gestures (including me) and had to sit down. This was repeated with the remaining people to get those who were “challengers”, one of whom was picked to go on stage. Derren then bet £50 that he could guess the hand it was in four times in a row. And he did. I swear the man has never lost a bet in his life. He then placed a £500 cheque in one envelope and a picture of his pet parrot Figaro in the other, getting the volunteer to guess which envelope the money was in. The envelopes were then placed one on each end of the stage until the end of the first half. Throughout Derren kept making blatant attempts to get the volunteer, who had returned to the audience, to change her mind and pick the envelope on the right. She stuck with the one on the left (as supposedly everyone always does) and ended up with the parrot. Tricky man – bluff, double bluff and triple bluff. Don’t trust him for one minute!

One of the best parts of the first half was the phone numbers. Derren told us that he had memorised the names and addresses of the people in the audience and cross-referenced them in the phone book. This is plausible – he memorises the cards during a game using mnemonics so he can predict which will come up next. Given a name and house number he could tell you your phone number. Picking people at random (this time by throwing a soft toy cat) he tried this. He had some trouble with the first few but did tell people their phone numbers, an audience member checking in the book on stage. He then announced
he h
ad been lying. He had not cross-referenced the audience – that would be impractical. He had instead memorised the entire local phone book. OK he’s crazy. But he had – another random person was picked. He then told them the page number, name in the top corner of the page, name and number of the entries directly above and below them and their phone number. Now that is good.

Also in the first half he got an audience member to draw a picture, and then drew exactly the same thing (an elephant) just by looking at the person. He also got a woman to think of the surname of a friend from childhood and then told her what it was without her saying anything. Then two people were “semi-hypnotised” – put in a relaxed and suggestive state. They then did what the other person did – raising and lowering their hands, and feeling the same things. When one person’s hand was touched the other one felt it. Creepy. The second half is darker, and different. I cannot say what happens but parts of it are quite scary and the whole shows builds up to one climax at the end. It will make you think.

Derren is really great at managing an audience. He says that some things will go wrong, or not work but that is because it is live and everyone he works with is different. He also jokes through the whole show – he says the people who are difficult to work with are psychologically “wonky”, bordering on the sociopathic even. When a girl who was picked to take part seemed quite nervous, he asked if she was a fan. When she said yes he asked if she would like to stroke his goatee! (She did) When gambling with the £50 he says he doesn’t normally bet with his whole night’s fee. He is really funny and wasn’t afraid to joke when things weren’t going right. I personally think that he deliberately made some things seem harder to add tension – and it worked. He did genuinely seem very please
d when something went really well. I think it was the best show I have ever been to and I wish it wasn’t a “one night only” performance. Once you know what it’s building to you might watch it differently.

I confess that I was one of the twenty or so people who hung around by the stage door for 20 minutes to get his autograph when they came out. He seemed really nice about it and was happy to sign everyone’s programmes – I got him to sign my ticket and do a little sketch of himself on it. He does portraits of people in a crazy caricature style that I think is really cool. If you have a chance to see this show then I recommend it highly. In October he is supposed to be doing some live TV shows and a real life Russian Roulette with a member of the public. Rather him than me but I expect he will manage it. He is nice and yet very scary – but in a good way.

To learn more here are some websites.

www.derrenbrown.co.uk
His official site. Includes his crazy portraits.

http://www.channel4.co.uk/science/microsites/M /mindcontrol/index.html
The official Mind Control site from Channel 4. Contains information on how he does it and interactive tests.

http://www.derrenbrown.150m.com
http://www.derrenbrownfans.bravepages.com/inde x.htm
Some fan sites that were listed on the official site – obsessive-compulsive fans!

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