I'm sure you know who he is by now, and if you don't, go Google.
First, let me just say that I am a big fan and think his work is great. Though I think my appreciation of his work has "matured" over the years. At first, I was quite naive and readily enjoyed his "psychological magic". Then I started to notice certain things... Things that didn't fit.... Things that were repeated... Recurrences of mannerisms and phrases.... And I wondered which aspects of his work were psychology, and which were sleight of hand... Where does the magic and trickery end and the real psychology begin?
The reality
To explain what I'm getting at let me put it another way: it occurred to me out of the blue, when I watched one of my favourite "tricks" of his from an old series that seemed to show incredible skills of mind manipulation, that there was a simple method of doing it. No psychology, no mind control, no in depth knowledge of human thoughts (at least not in the sense he was stating), instead it was a simple trick. An example of this, which he revealed, was the trick in which he plays chess simultaneously with 9 people, which at first seems incredible, when in truth, the trick is very logical and straightforward. At first I was disappointed. The part of me that enjoyed his work for its implications in day to day human thoughts was lost. Partly. Mainly because I realised he has lied about his work. That's his prerogative of course, as a magician, but it's still an uncomfortable realisation. Then it started to get more interesting. Once you know that everything he does may be a trick and none of the psychology might be real, that he may not be doing what he says he is doing, you work harder and question more, to figure it out. I think this is what he wants.
Now we reach the contradictions. On the one hand, Derren seems to revel in revealing some of his tricks. As though by showing us how it's done, he is getting us to open our minds. If you have read his book, you will also see that he is very keen on encouraging people not to accept his work at face value. In his book, he goes from discussing psychology and methodology, to ranting about scientific thinking and rejecting irrational faith. The second half of his book is essentially all about how people should think and question more, and Brown's obvious frustration with people who don't. He is deliberately shady about whether his work is psychology or magic or both, and I think that in part he wants us to try and work it out. But therein lies the contradiction: he needs us not to work it out. His work, and the efficacy of his "tricks", relies on people taking what he says at face value. I won't go so far as to say his subjects are stupid... but he needs them to just follow his lead and essentially do as he says, otherwise it wouldn't work. Time and time again on stage, he seemed to get volunteers who accepted what he said. Who not only weren't previously aware of the trick (people were unfamiliar with well known tricks such as table spinning, even though they had been featured on his TV series), but weren't aware that he was lying to them to yield a particular result (such as fabricating an elaborate story about a "dead person" that they would then divine details about). Perhaps he can spot these people easily. On the flip side, perhaps he can spot the ones who are suspicious of his truthfulness too. Perhaps these are the people he sends back to their seats with a shake of the hand and a "sorry, this won't work with you". Or maybe he just does that for showmanship. Who knows but him and Andy (Nyman).
With the luxury of DVDs, figuring out his tricks gets easier with repeated viewings. This is because magicians use misdirection. They look at their left hand, you look at their left hand, meanwhile their right hand is palming the coin. So the first time you view the trick, you don't see it. So if you watch it a few times, you get past that, in theory. After watching his stuff and getting familiar with his work, you reach the limit of what you can garner from the DVDs, because they are edited. In the end, the clues you're looking for may have been cut out and you'll never work it out that way. So what better way to assess this man's skill than see him live? Surely it should be easier to figure out, if there's no editing or camera-trickery, and he's right there in front of you? Hmm... Nope.
The Showman
If you do decide to see him live, and I thoroughly recommend that you do, make sure you sit in the stalls. You are wasting your money if you sit anywhere else. I think you're wasting money if you're more than 10 rows back, actually. Although you might be lucky enough to get picked to go up on stage, no matter where you're sitting (though for the upper circle this is really unlikely). I have watched him from the front row, and there is nothing like it. You can see everything. You can lean forward and look up behind the stage curtain... As a suggestion. ;) When he lay down on some broken glass and got a man to stand on his head, he was staring straight at me with the most horrendous look on his face (though that might just be because he took an aversion to my face, heh), then when he got up I could see the blood on his cheek. That was seriously intense, and you miss it if you sit anywhere else (though if you're squeamish, perhaps that's what you'd prefer). Another bonus of sitting at the front is you get to be involved, even if it's only on a small scale. Derren often asks people in the front row for help (not as volunteers in his tricks, they are chosen randomly, but more general help). The downside of this is that you will not be able to relax throughout the show. You will be sitting there, and if you're anything like me, you'll be nervous that he is going to ask you to do something. Of course, if he does that's great! But he is intimidating on stage. He is very different to how he appears on TV, on stage he is manic, scarily sharp and dominates the entire auditorium. If you try to embarrass him he will cut you down! So don't even try to heckle him (a memorable moment from his show- a man behind me yelled out "Do you cheat??", to which Derren laughed and replied "Of course I do. What cheek, I could have you wetting the bed for the rest of your life if I so choose").
So how does he do it?
Now- on to the real question- can you figure out his tricks from the show? Yes and no. Some of them are rehashed versions of tricks from his TV series. So if you've already figured those out, then you're away (and you'll also be a bit disappointed by the show...). Some of them are simple psychology that we have seen before. But.. others are so incredibly impressive, and apparently complex, it was impossible for me to begin to work them out. With his tricks, I usually think "what would I do, to get that effect?", but he is very good at undoing that line of thinking on stage. He is a master of hiding what is really happening, and making you forget the actual events that have unfolded. In short, he is a very good magician. An added complication, which might melt your brain, is that at least with TV you can reassure yourself that he filmed the trick multiple times, and only aired the one where it worked. So how do you explain the fact that everything in the stage show works? Oh, it's simple. It's because, er, erm, he just, er... *sounds of brain melting*. One thing that I frequently wonder is whether or not Derren is offering us hints to his tricks all the time. For instance, showing us that he spent an afternoon flipping a coin to get a take of 5 heads in a row. Is that a hint that lots of his TV tricks are based on statistics? When he showed us how he beat chess grandmasters, is that a nod to how he deceives us with his other tricks? When he described memory techniques in his book (he has mentioned them throughout his career and certainly seems keen on them), is that a whopper of a hint I wonder? How about when he pickpocketed a man in plain sight, relieving him of his wallet, phone, keys and even his tie? Is that an allusion to how he tells people the contents of their wallets? I don't know at all. But sometimes I do wonder whether he is playing a game with us, and smugly revelling in the fact that the answers are right in front of our eyes.
Pants on fire
There is one thing that I noticed on stage. I have watched Derren from the beginning. I have seen all of his work (excluding the Devil's Picturebook, which is before he became famous), I have seen him live 3 times now and met him twice. After all this, you start to notice when the man is lying. Which is frequently. Derren professes to be an expert lie-detector, but when it comes down to it he is not so brilliant at hiding his own fibs. Of course, one should expect some level of fictionality in a stage show, and his are certainly no different. But after a long time of watching his work, it gets easier to see through some of his bull. I can't explain it, but it's as though a switch flicked in my head, and I realised he was lying. Of course, I don't always spot it, but it's great when I do. :) To spot the easy lies, just refuse to believe anything he says :P. That's a good start. If he is telling a story, he is lying. If he starts telling you about a book he read or a famous magician from years ago, he is lying. If he claims his act is dangerous and he might hurt himself or die, he is lying. If he claims you might hurt yourself or die, he is lying, though it's probably best not to try and disprove him at this point- just think back to the trick where he put large needles through Robbie Williams' arms- in that situation, you could try to prove it was a trick (i.e. a stuck on layer of synthetic skin) , despite the apparent pain and blood, by ripping the needles out, but if you're wrong you're in for some stitches. He might go to great lengths to show you he is telling the truth. But he is lying.
Anyone who disputes that, or who thinks that his work is purely psychological, needs to familiarise themselves with his past. His background is magic, particularly card magic. There is a reason why this man is banned from every casino in the UK! Then you have to remember that he gave that up, he left card magic behind, to do what he currently does.
A trick you can try at home
One thing I would like to say here, is that I tried his memory techniques from his book. I used them to get through my finals at university. They were a safety net, so I knew I had methods of retrieving the information, in case of exam-induced blank-mindedness. I absorbed an incredible amount of information in just a few days, and I can still remember it. That is more than a little intriguing to me. When I met Derren shortly afterwards, I thanked him for it. We had a very funny and charming conversation about... monkeys and sausages, during which, I kid you not, he giggled like a little girl. But that's another story. I never would have used those techniques to such a powerful extent had he not summarised them in his book. So, after my exams, I also decided to play with the techniques for fun. I memorised the order of a deck of cards. That itself is not a trick, not really (to learn how, check out his book). The trick is to get someone to pick a card, then multiple cards, and tell them what they are. The way to make that impressive a la Derren Brown is to make people think you couldn't possibly have learned the order of all the cards (they shouldn't even consider that as a possibility, if they do you're stuck), instead they are left with the impression that you divined the identity of the card from their mind. You can use showmanship to build on this. Get them to form a mental picture of the card in front of them (when you first start out, get them to put the card in their pocket so you can't see it, then ask them to close their eyes and form the picture, you can use this time to unknowingly look at the card below theirs in the deck ;) ). When they look up and left, gasp a little, pretend to notice something, say "I think.... it must be a red card!", and they nod. Do it again, pretend you're working really hard to notice some detail in their face or eyes. Once you're confident at this part, and at recalling the cards (which, under pressure, can be hard), throw in a little misdirection: ask the person to shuffle the deck. This can backfire, but you need to control the shuffle. Don't go handing the deck to a card connoisseur, who will proceed to riffle the order into oblivion and screw your trick. Certainly don't let them use a table. Keep your hands outstretched infront of them so that they only shuffle the deck a little, then take it back from them. This leaves the order intact for the most part, but there is now a possibility of your trick going wrong. Don't forget to say "now you know they're shuffled and in no particular order". For an added touch appear to shuffle the cards absentmindedly yourself a few times. This puts what is really happening out if their minds and leaves them with two options 1) you can read their minds/faces and 2) the cards are marked. One further point is that as you proceed with the trick and repeat it over and over, you need to keep track of the cards that have come and gone. This is because they are now missing from their correct places in the deck, so you will need to skip to the next card in the order. This is just down to memory in the end, but don't get caught out by it.
Now, I'm certainly no expert at magic, what I know about it is from watching lots of tricks, doing lots of reading, and trying various things out on my housemate. Heh. So of course plenty of his tricks are lost on me. But I really do love to work them out. His recent TV series have taken a different tangent recently. Although there still is the aspect of magic on some level, he explores psychology a little more. Of course, there is a lot of psychology behind magic, and that in itself makes fascinating reading/thinking, but what I mean here that he now openly uses NLP and suggestion to show their effects.
Who watches Derren Brown?
Finally then, Derren's popularity is as divided as Marmite. Some people think he's great, others
cannot stand him. True, he comes across as eccentric, "posh" (hate that word), smart and smug; qualities that a lot of people dislike. I think though, he is popular with two groups of people. Those who take his work at face value (despite his pleas for them not to) and enjoy his TV shows as entertaining fodder. And those who think outside the box and really question what he is actually doing, at every level. Which group you fall into depends on why you like his shows. Which do you enjoy more, being fooled by the magic, or understanding the trick?
To finish, one of my favourite "tricks" of his, along with an explanation. Works to spectacular effect:
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