Derren Brown
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British psychological illusionist (mentalist). He was born in Croydon, Surrey, and attended the University of Bristol, where he made his first public performances, as a traditional stage magician. From the mid-1990s he pursued a career as conjurer, practising the traditional skills of close-up magic. Even after his later change of emphasis many of his psychological illusions are, in essence, these same tricks (well known to magicians) skilfully performed with Brown's showman's flair adding psychological sheen to aid misdirection.
Television Shows
Mind Control
Since the first broadcast of his Channel 4 television show Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000 he has become increasingly well known for his "mind-reading" act. Derren Brown makes no claims to possess psychic ability. He claims to achieve his results by making use of deep psychological insight. Using his knowledge and skill he claims that he is able to predict and influence people's thoughts with subtle suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking. He began his television work with three hour-long specials over two years which lead up to the six part series Mind Control which incorporated new footage with the best of the hour long shows. A second series of all new material followed the year after. Selected highlights from the first series are available on DVD and video entitled Derren Brown - Inside Your Mind.
Russian Roulette
On October 5, 2003, Brown performed his most controversial stunt to date, playing Russian roulette live on Channel 4 (though with a slight delay in case the stunt was not successful). Because of the British gun laws banning the possession of handguns, the stunt supposedly had to be performed outside of Britain, at an undisclosed secret location. A volunteer, chosen from 12,000 who applied for the task, and whittled down to 5 by the day of the stunt, loaded a single shot into a revolver with six numbered chambers, then counted from one to six. Attempting to predict the location of the bullet, Brown pulled the trigger on chambers 3 and 4 with the gun aimed at his head, before aiming away on chamber 5 and again pulling the trigger (though the chamber was empty). After a very long pause, he aimed at his head again for chamber 6, before quickly firing the (supposedly) live round in chamber 1 away from him. The stunt was condemned by senior British police officers, apparently fearful of copycat acts. Several commentators also suggested that the show was a mere hoax. It later transpired that the stunt had occurred in Jersey, where gun laws are not as strict as in Britain. Furthermore, even before the stunt, the police there, who had been in contact with Channel 4, were "absolutely satisfied ... that no-one was in any danger whatsoever". The Jersey police also said "a prop company brought a number of props to the island" and the BBC reported their Detective Chief Officer as stating that "there was no live ammunition involved".
Séance
Brown's next project was shown on Channel 4 on 31 May 2004. In Derren Brown: Séance he brought 12 members of the public together to re-create a live séance. He placed an advertisement in a magazine, inviting students to come along to the event. Explaining that the location (Elton Hall) had a history of paranormal activity after 12 people killed themselves in a suicide pact in 1974, Brown demonstrated the methods used by spiritualists. The show attempted to involve the television audience with interactive activities, the first of which being the directed choice of one of the members of the suicide pact by looking at photographs. The 12 pictures were shown on screen in a set pattern with half of them in colour and half black and white. The viewer was instructed to choose one of the colour images that they "feel a connection with". Brown then directed the viewers in a movement pattern between the photographs (for example, move left or right to one of the adjacent black and white photographs). The positioning and movement instructions were carefully planned to ensure that no matter which photograph was initially chosen the viewer would finish on the picture of Jane. Ten of the students also chose Jane. During the following ouija board scene the "spirit" guided the students to spell the name Jane. Two of the students, along with the television viewers, were asked to write the name of a city. Both students chose London. This was influenced in part by Brown reading out the names of the suicide students - the final two were Tina and Lina. The uncommon use, rhyme and the strengthened pronunciation of the second name gave people the trigger letter L, influencing the decision to choose a city beginning with that letter. The final scene, the séance itself, saw the group "contact" Jane. One of the students was speaking as if she was Jane and gave some details about her life. These were confirmed to be true in a letter and in a small film. Brown went on to explain some of the manipulations he had used, including the photograph positioning/instructions and the use of ideomotor during the ouija board. The suicide pact had not taken place and "Jane" was taken to meet the students at the end of the show. The show received a mass of complaints, some even before it was shown. Viewers that "[felt] something unusual" were invited to call a phone number, with callers told that the show was carefully planned and that no paranormal activities were going on. Brown also warned viewers of the impending ouija board scene asking for those that objected for "religious reasons or otherwise" to stop watching the show.
Messiah
Shown on 7 January 2005 Derren Brown travelled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead. Using false names each time, he succeeded in convincing four of the five people that he had powers and they openly endorsed him as a true practioner. The fifth expert, whilst impressed by Derren's performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regards to beliefs and peoples abilities to not question them. His final summary was that people tend to only hear things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory beliefs.
Psychic Powers
Derren asked a leading figure at a psychic training school to go into another room and draw a number of simple pictures on any topic they wished. After each picture had been completed, he would have his prediction of what the picture was written down by the other members of the training school in the room with him. He was 100% correct. At one time when Derren was telling the participant to draw the next picture, he instructed the lady to "let some ideas sail into your mind". She drew a boat in water.
Alien Abduction
Derren convinced two leading figures in the field of alien abduction that after being abducted himself, he had the ability to sense people's medical history. The lady on which he demonstrated said that he was "100% correct" in the medical history he had given. The lady expressed a keen interest in spreading the word about Derren's skills in medical journal.
New-age Theories
Derren instructed a leading new-age theorist to sleep with a machine attached to her pillow for 5 days. The participant was told that this machine used crystal technology to record the dreams she was having - in fact it was simply a box with a switch which turned an LED on-and-off. Derren recalled the dreams correctly, including the fact that some were in black-and-white instead of colour. The participant was so impressed that she invited Derren to appear on her radio show the next day, which he declined.
Christian Evangelism
Derren performed instant conversions on a group consisting of members of the public, all of which were atheists. After the first instant conversion many of the group chose to leave, concerned by what they had just witnessed. Derren then proceeded to convert another individual and then the remainder of the group at once. In each case, he caused the participant(s) to at least accept the possibility that there was a god, where previously they had all refused to do so. At the end, a notice on the screen noted that the participants had all be "de-converted" before they left.
Contacting the Dead
Derren assembled a group of public volunteers and gave readings for several of them. His readings were very specific and all the participants were convinced that he was genuinely communicating to their dead relatives. The fact that the readings were false was explained to the participants at the end and all were happy for their readings to be broadcast.
2003/04 Tour
In 2003 and 2004 he toured around theatres in the UK, and is currently on tour again as part of the 2004/05 season with a different show.
Other Productions and Publications
He has written two books on magic, Absolute Magic and Pure Effect. Absolute Magic is not so much a book about magical instruction and methodology but an insightful and helpful book about how to make your performances as a magician magical; it is written in a variety of styles, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but always thought-provoking. He warns against an act that conveys the feeling of "Here are some tricks I've bought" and urges us to make our performances experiential and memorable by involving the audience. In some respects a lot of what he says is in Darwin Ortiz' Strong Magic but his book expresses it in the context of his experiences, performance style and theories of how performance should be. Pure Effect is a more traditional book of trickery and technique and offers an insight into the methods that Derren employs for some of his tricks, and offers a starting point for development for your own use. His video, The Devil's Picturebook, contains details of the card effects from earlier in his career.
Here are other Magic Topics that will be worth your viewing:
