Halfway through the second act, Derren Brown called out my name and told me the first song I ever played on a guitar. It was quite the thing.
Derren Brown is a ‘psychological illusionist’ memorably described by Charlie Brooker as ‘clearly the greatest dinner party guest in history’. His TV shows regularly feature a mixture of street magic/psychology and elaborate, often controversial, events. He’s certainly the most interesting TV magician of recent years, and last night I saw him at the Birmingham Hippodrome.
Like his TV shows, the act was described as a mixture of ‘magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship’1, and lived up to the billing. We were told that during the show a gorilla would come onto the stage, steal a banana from a stand at the front, and most of us wouldn’t notice. So it proved. We saw an audience member forget information given to her moments before, a floating table drag four volunteers around the stage, six rapid-fire games of 20 questions in which he never asked more than 4, and a series of baffling three-digit-number predictions. Somebody’s phone rang and he said “don’t answer, it’s really bad news”.
Derren Brown is unquestionably on the side of Good. He says up front “I do not have psychic powers, and I may well trick you”, then proceeds to do so. People who claim to have psychic powers and use the same tricks to make money are unquestionably Evil2, the opposite are great entertainment. Some have questioned whether he goes too far: there’s plenty of genuine psychology, but also a fair amount of magical trickery wrapped up in the same patter. I was lucky enough to get an insight into this. At the end of the first act we were told to watch out for ushers with 150 cards. Recipients were asked to write a question for Derren on the card, seal it inside the supplied black envelope and note their initials and row on the front. They were then to check the envelope was truly opaque before walking onto the stage and placing it into a glass bowl, which remained in full view of the audience throughout the interval.
Obviously, I wanted to do this. So I did. I moved fairly quickly and was able to grab a card before they ran out. The card asked for my name, birthday and a question for Derren. He’d said it could be literally anything, so I wrote “How did the bee ‘waggle dance’ evolve?”. The back of the card then asked for a private piece of information to further test his abilities, so I filled this in too then quickly headed to the stage, dropped my envelope into the bowl and made it back to my seat just before the lights dimmed.
After a couple of tricks he explained the procedure. By looking at the handwriting on the front of the envelope he hoped to ascertain the personality type of its owner. We were to stand up, and he’d then read our body language and try to figure out what we’d written. And then proceeded to do so. He picked out apparently random cards, sometimes using them, sometimes discarding them, and called out the initials so the owner stood. He told people the pets they had, the password for their computer, their occupation and what they’d been doing that day. About half-way through he took off his microphone earpiece, in case anybody thought he was being fed answers, and wrapped bandages around his head to completely blind himself. And then continued with the act. The following exchange (transcribed as accurately as I can remember) happened shortly after:
DB: [picks up a card] A guitar! Andy..Andrew…does that match anybody?
Me: [standing up and receiving the microphone from a scurrying usher] Yes, that’s me.
DB: A Taurean, right?
Me: Yes. [gasps from audience]
DB: This is something musical, something to do with the guitar. I’m getting…It’s the first song you played on the guitar, am I right?
Me: Yes.
DB: Ok. About fifteen years old, right?
Me: No.
DB: It is older?
Me: Oh, me or the song?
DB: Never mind, one question at a time. Sing the song over in your head. Over and over. Try to project it to me.
Me: [actually doing so]. Ok.
DB: I’m getting something about…pain, is that close?
Me: Yes, very.
DB: And lots of pain. I can’t quite figure it out. There are many people in pain? Something like that?
Me: That’s very close.
DB: I can’t get the title I’m afraid, what is it?
Me: Everybody Hurts. [audience go into shock]
I was very, very impressed. The rest of the show was most entertaining, but I couldn’t quite get over him managing to detect that kind of information from what must have purely been the tone of my voice - it’s astonishing that people can give away that much information!
Later, I changed my mind. There’s no doubt that the guy has an uncanny ability to read people, and I was prepared to accept that handwriting could give away very obvious facts like gender, leaving him to discern the rest from body language, but blinded he couldn’t possibly have known my guitar fact and name. So it must have been trickery, rather than psychology. I’m confident I’ve worked out how it was done, starting from the age-old magical principle that there is no limit to the trouble a magician will go to. I’m not going to go into it here - I see no reason to, and am still bound by the old magician’s code anyway - but the clues are there if you want the intellectual exercise.
It is momentarily crushing to realise you’ve been fooled. I bought into the psychological aspect, and when I realised this was a falsehood I felt tricked. But not for long. Once you figure out the secret you can see the myriad of ways he worked to throw people off the scent, and it was remarkably well done. The subtlety and panache of just that one trick was stunning, and his performance impeccable: I believed every second of him not being able to figure out the song title. There was plenty in the show that was clearly trickery, but I have no idea as to the mechanics. Other effects gave every impression of being purely psychological. I had the advantage of extra knowledge in the routine I was involved with, and if each of the others was as carefully constructed, which they must have been, it was a hell of a creation. My admiration far outweighs the initial resentment.
Derren Brown’s obfuscation of psychology and trickery is edgier than most magicians’, but I don’t have a problem with it. You don’t have to be a great logician to realise it’s impossible to get a psychological reading of somebody’s handwriting if you’re blindfolded, and throughout the show he was at pains to say he doesn’t believe in psychic ability and is highly skeptical with regard to the paranormal. I can’t think of any statements that were outright lies and not magician’s misdirection. There’s plenty in psychology that is astonishing - much of it is well highlighted in his more spectacular TV work - and anything that draws attention to it is fine with me.
A good magic show is a wonderful thing, and there aren’t many classier than this. Highly recommended.
Hi,
I was there in Birmingham and unfortunately, I don’t have the background to figure out how he did it but I’m still intrigued. Can you tell us a little about how he did it?
Derek
I have just come back from watching Derren brown at manchester 5/5/07 and was totally amazed. I went to see his show last year and loved it then but his show this year was totally unlike the last one and was at a different level. In the second half he asked people to write a question for him to answer along with something personal about yourself to start off with he answered the questions and told them the personal thing about him self. I actually took part in the show he gussed my computer password. a 14 chracter one. ( In which i have changed now) I was and am still in shcok on how he did it. If you can get tickets go and watch it it is the best 22 pound i have ever spent.
Laura,
I was there in the circle above you last night. So you weren’t the plant then
Paul
Was also there last night. No question that its a range of techniques both illusion and psycoligical. Dont underestimate how amazing this guys memory is. He has shown it over and over again on his TV shows.
Matt
i was certainly not a plant i was totally amazed. That password no one knew and it was really long 14 digits.
Before i went to that show i was still thinking it wasn’t all real but now i am a total believer. He is amazing. i want to see the show again to see if i can work out how some things are done.
All respect to Derren and his abilities but you have to remember that there’s no magic/psychic abilities involved - it is all very clever trickers. As somone else said, don’t underestimate the trouble they will go to. You can find out how this trick is done, with some very clever other abilities, on the internet if you search, but there’s no reason to “believe”.
A great show in any case.
i know he has no psychic power but when i said believed i meant i believe that he is a really clever man and that it is not obvious how he does it i.e he doesn’t use plants because i know i was not a plant
I’m still a little unclear on the question one.
Having been and took a look at the forms there were two main fields: Question for derren & Fact about yourself. In the fact about yourself you can write down a fact rather than a question right? so you might write down my “middle name is robert” if you were really boring… So if he was able to use trickery and deception - common threads of magic - to be able to somehow read your card - perhaps by discarding it onto the stage far enough for someone behind the scenes to open it and then feed him prompts - then he could easily ‘guess’ the information, whilst making you think it was impossible by keeping the focus on the question aspect - the answer to which was not provided - hence it seeming impossible.
This is just my theory btw - constructed on the night - i’m reading his book now and seems to have seperate sections for magic and psychological trickery etc. He seems to have a good mastery of the fundemental skills, and together with his intelligence he can do some fantastic things.. i’m personally fascinated with the psychological items of the show, and would really love to see that aspect seperated from the magical trickery aspects.
Amazing!!!! Not.
You wrote some stuff down on a card. You put the card he provided in an envelop he provided. He handled the envelope and then told you some of the info on that card.
I can’t even BEGIN to imagine how this was possible
I admit this could be true but it is still amazing that he could remember all the information for about 15 people in less then 10 mins. Could you honestly say you could do that? There was alot of information on the cards and it could of easily be muddled up however it wasn’t thats why it is amazing.
So Nozza, how do you see through the envelope that he provided?
Laura, I was also there on saturday, it was a great show.
Just wondering if you wrote the pin number in the envelope??
Im guessing you did.
I cant see how he could guess it if you didnt.
The most amazing part was that Jasper Carrot thing ………….
oh and when he appeared in the monkey suit………….
And the phone call …………..
and, well actually, it was all amazing!
I did write my password down therefore he could of seen it however it was amazing how he if he saw it remembered all the information on the card and the same for the other people in a short period of time. Admittingly the end bit was the most amazing and am in shock to how he knew jasper carrot would come up in the show. This would kind of try and make me believe that he didn’t the see the cards but this we will never know. However there is no harm in believing the impossible is there?
Remembering that he is an expert at slight of hand and at remembering things, you have to remember that he could have read the cards before and remembered the info and also switched the roll of paper from the box hanging over the stage before we saw it quite easily. Still impressed at his skills but it is all trickery.
I have just been to one of his shows and was the person chosen to go on stage and call somebody. At the end he then told me to open the £10 note and read the serial number. I have since worked out how this was done, am I allowed to expose it on here?
You can if you like, but it might spoil it for people who don’t want to know.
As for the sealed envelopes, you’ll notice they were made of a funny material, a little like tracing paper, but could not be seen through as they are jet black.
This is until you have oil etc., on your hands and they become completely transparent. Try sticking oil on grease proof paper.
As for the show I was a massive fan of the last tour, but I found this one to be more a collection of cheap and often obvious magic tricks. (liverpool 14th May)
That was my thinking too - basically a modern update on older but similar methods. Either that or a one-ahead opening system (did he open any of the envelopes to “confirm his readings”?). I also imagine with the money his team has they could come up with inks that go clear in contact with certain substances. Once something is written down there are tons of options for getting a look at it.
Anyone notice how the effects on his live shows are all easily explained by standard magic methods, quite unlike his TV effects. Makes me think that his TV effects are not what they seem at all. I think they hide a lot of very important information creating an impossibility for us for what was only quite a good but standard mental effect for the person actually involved.
Hey Paul you going to share the explaination to the 10 pound not trick?
Yes Paul,
Even if you are wrong we would love to hear your theory.
You aren’t revealing any secrets unless you actually work for the show. Otherwise its just a theory. No Harm sharing it here.
in reply to nozza - he didn’t open the envelopes to confrim, so its wasn’t a 1-ahead read.
With regards to the notes - its not going to be suggestion as there wasn’t really any and it would be too risky in this circumstance.
I’d personally guess something along the lines of a reproduction £10 note with no serial numbers and a 6-digit stamp in your pocket - once you have the selected 6 digits, select the right numbers on the stamp and stamp the note (this can all be done by touch, with you hand in your pocket) - remember that the girl (in the liverpool show) wasn’t given the £10 until after all the numbers had been written down and that Mr. Brown repeatedly put his hand in his pocket to take/replace the pen that he was writing on the paper pad with.
Just an idea though - haven’t really given it much thought
That would certainly work rather well. With a decent magic technician you could get a very slick and well designed device to do that.
Essentially, if what is said/chosen/thought/drawn etc by the audience member is truely free then the only options are to either alter the prediction to match, after obtaining the information; or to have a number of outcomes, one of which matches (which is another form of altering the prediction really). Clearly with a longish sequence of numbers, you’d need way too many outcomes which only leaves the altering of the prediction at the last minute. You can normally tell if this is likely by the fact that the prediction is hidden until the last minute. What would be amazing but impossible would be for him to give the note (prediction) to someone, not in an envelope and let them read the number and THEN get the other person to say that number. If he could really “influence” people as claimed then that is what he would do. But of course he can’t since he’s only human.
i was at the liverpool show on monday night and was amazed by the end where he predicted things that would happen in the show, especially the word ’shark’ from the 20 questions game as this was the word chosen by the man who was sent back to his seat ‘as it wouldn’t work with him’. he was sat near me and when derren said he had got ’shark’ wrong, he looked surprised then got out his piece of paper from near the start of the show which said, ’shark’ on it!
thinking about the total of the number revealed at the end of the show being the date of the show (14507) i noticed at the end of my row someone was given the paper to write the numbers down but when asked for the total at the end of the show it came from the other side of the theatre….? not sure if this is significant or not…
also, regarding the £10 note trick, it would be interesting if anyone could remember the 6 digit number given by the person on the phone at any other shows. at liverpool on monday i think it started with 301…? is this the same as other places or not? looking forward to your theory on this paul.
hey i went to the show last night and it was amazing!!! Best show iv been to in my life i reckon! (lee evans comes close!). O YEA AND IF U HAVNT BEEN TO THE SHOW YET STOP READING NOW!!!! I MEAN IT! LOOK AWAY!! =P i was just wondering if any1 knew how he did the floating table?! im pretty sure its not because of subconsious movements, i know it must be a trick using some sort of magnets or something! anybody got any ideas!?
For the floating table its almost certainly magnetic but made to look like wood (he even said it was a ’specially made’ table, hehe)
A decently sized electromagnet under the stage would certainly be able to lift a table. Try this: put a powerful magnet flat on a table/floor and then put another magnet of the same polarisation above it and it will be pushed away.. it doesn’t hover. However if you wanted to keep the magnet in the air then supporting it above will stop it flying off e.g. cupping your hand around it, or even better a bit of cling film to stop it spinning over.
Now imagine a tall narrow magnetic table, that weighs very little (e.g. ply/bolster), but with a weight distribution (magnet) being at the bottom being pushed upwards by a strong magnet under the stage and being prevented from flying off by a cloth pinning it down from above.
one of these days am gonna get round to making a magic/mentalism education website - the main thing that i take issue with in the world of magic is there’s a lot of whining about magic exposure, but you can buy books/props/gimmicks from any magic store or off the internet.
It means that if you want to learn the business then you need a fair stack of cash to buy the techniques and if you don’t have that you’re pretty stuffed. Dear god, I actually bought a raven gimmick :’(
I saw Mr Brown in Sunderland and it was an awsome show, I got a review of my own on my blog. I loved the victorian style of the second half and found it highly entertaining, money well spent!
My Review
http://www.andy-coates.com/blog/2007/05/07/derren-brown-an-evening-of-wonders/
Andy
thanx MonkeyFiend! now i just need to install some magnets in my house and amaze my friends hehe.
DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE £10 NOTE TRICK!
I went up on stage to phone my brother. The three numbers Derren predicted were ‘734′. The first three number my brother said were ‘369′ and the second numbers were ‘219′.
After he got these wrong Derren padded out the time by talking to him and trying to get himn to guess another 3 numbers - still wrong (these were not written on the board). He then went back to the paper board (remeber how close it was to the curtain). I believe at this point he was handed a £10 note which had just had my borther’s numbers printed on it by an ink jet printer. He then gave me the £10 note and thanked me, just as I was about to walk off stage he called me back to open the note which had the 6 numbers exactly and in the correct order. He then let me keep the £10 note.
I was amazed for a couple of days until I realised how it was done. I was fixed on the fact that the £10 was real which meant I must have somehow got my brother to say the 6 numbers….Wrong!
On closer inspection of another £10 note there are actually 2 serial numbers, one horizontal and one that runs vertically (go and check now!). On the note was written ‘I will make him say these numbers’ all in capitals. Coincidently the first ‘I’ covered up the horizontal 6 digit serial number. Also on closer inspection the original vertical serial number has been been removed as the paper is slightly thinner and some of the image has been removed (probably chemically). The numbers that have been re-printed are slightly larger than the true £10 and have also bleed a little (due to being printed on an inkjet printer). I did see a guy in the wings of the stage but I thought he was just there for the power point show etc…..but maybe not!
Regarding Matt’s coment - It’s funny that at the end of the show one of the words was ‘Octopus’ which was also the girl who sat back down in the audience from the 20 questions part. Coincidence or planned. It would be easy to see what she wrote by a high camera in the wings and it would seem more spectacular guessing this on the strip of paper than someone who was up on stage. The plot thickens.
I did try to put this on yesterday, twice but it never worked!
DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE £10 NOTE TRICK!
I went up on stage to phone my brother at the Nottingham show 11th May. The three numbers Derren predicted were ‘734′. The first three number my brother said were ‘369′ and the second numbers were ‘219′.
After he got these wrong Derren padded out the time by talking to him and trying to get himn to guess another 3 numbers - still wrong (these were not written on the board). He then went back to the paper board (remeber how close it was to the curtain). I believe at this point he was handed a £10 note which had just had my borther’s numbers printed on it by an ink jet printer. He then gave me the £10 note and thanked me, just as I was about to walk off stage he called me back to open the note which had the 6 numbers exactly and in the correct order. He then let me keep the £10 note.
I was amazed for a couple of days until I realised how it was done. I was fixed on the fact that the £10 was real which meant I must have somehow got my brother to say the 6 numbers….Wrong!
On closer inspection of another £10 note there are actually 2 serial numbers, one horizontal and one that runs vertically (go and check now!). On the note was written ‘I will make him say these numbers’ all in capitals. Coincidently the first ‘I’ covered up the horizontal 6 digit serial number. Also on closer inspection the original vertical serial number has been been removed as the paper is slightly thinner and some of the image has been removed (probably chemically). The numbers that have been re-printed are slightly larger than the true £10 and have also bleed a little (due to being printed on an inkjet printer). I did see a guy in the wings of the stage but I thought he was just there for the power point show etc…..but maybe not!
Regarding Matt’s coment - It’s funny that at the end of the show one of the words was ‘Octopus’ which was also the girl who sat back down in the audience from the 20 questions part. Coincidence or planned. It would be easy to see what she wrote by a high camera in the wings and it would seem more spectacular guessing this on the strip of paper than someone who was up on stage. The plot thickens.
yup, that would certainly work with the £10 note - inkjet printer! bit more technologically advanced than my stamp suggestion!
but I suppose it boils down to the same basic premise.
Exactly, prediction of a genuinely free choice means changing the prediction after the choice is known.
Technology makes a lot of this easy. There are clipboards available which transmit the image of what is written by radio to a small screen. I’ve seen them and I’ve seen one on DB’s show.
Saw DVB at Southend last friday.
Firstly - superb - seen all three tours now and it is the most entertaining night & would recommend it to anyone regardles of what is trickery & what is pure genius!
*spoilers lay ahead*
1) £10 trick - I like the theories so far…and guess that printing back stage is the most plausable answer. However on the night I saw…he predicted 734 before the call, then the person on the phone gave the number 911 (written on the board) then he was asked to pick it again….he chose 374 (written on the board)
He was then asked to re-arrange those numbers he said 734. The note had 911374 as the last numbers. Regardless of the notes being printed backstage, he still maganed to get the called participant to choose the right 3 numbers and then get the correct order.
2) Second half trick - I guessed that the final ‘medium like’ questions were not being done through the power of psychic ability, especially as he told us all that! I presume that a member of the crew came onto the stage during the interval and added a black envelope into the bowl, but also removed 20 or so to take backstage…I don’t think this classes as a stooge, just misdirection! Derren (from reading his book) is able to remember information quickly especially when it is tranfered into coded information ie initials and row number. He probably interacts this information with the simple basis of seerating the information to Upstairs / downstairs (something he was adament the audience declared rather than saying here or hello) On the night I watched he gave starsigns replys to questions etc all info written on the cards. He even told one guy he had a 13 year old sister (presumably he had both cards back stage and linked them (blind luck for that evening) Notice that he does not nessersarily have the actually persons black card in his hand!!
A good aside was the card from CH - a young boy who probably wrote something silly like why r u a w**k**.
No one owned up to this and could have been a planted card for comic effect!!
All this is well and good, but he then proceeded to forget the cards and ask people to mentally project questions….these people did not give in cards (apparently) and he still new stuff about them. All this time he is also guessing stuff in peoples pockets and also getting people to add numbers……
I think that you can work out some bits of this trick….but there is too much going on to work it all out and still it relys on the mans ability to recall information which is an amazing skill all by itself.
3) Finalle - Yes it could be slight of hand, kinda spoils the fun though if you think that! The word for my evening was ‘box’ and the audience member was also sent back earlier!
I love trying to work out how thing are done, and 80% of the time this bloke baffles me….I often resort to the High tech gadget theories, but really there is a simpler explaination, the man is just bloody good!
HI. I went to see him yesterday in Portsmouth. The word apple was also the word that the guy who was sent back to his seat had written. I think this is proof enough that he switched the rolls of paper somehow (no idea how!!!). The adding numbers trick is baffling. It seems so clean. However, I think the pad was only sent back 8 or so rows and then totalled, and yet the total was 20507 (yesterday’s date). Even if all the numbers were 999, it would still only total 7992. I was sure it was an audience member who called out the total though. If it was, it HAD to be a stooge surely?!? My head was really hurting after last night. Thanks for those suggestions for how he did the tenner trick and the oracle. I knew he had to have seen those cards. The oil on fingers theory seems plausible but he would have to have had a very quick method for working out people’s star signs and their day of birth. If he had pre-seen the cards in the interval, however, (which also explains why he said ‘please try and put them in early in the interval, to give him time to learn them) he could’ve had a list of every date of birth and their corresponding star signs/days of birth. Notice how he didn’t tell the audience that you write your name and DOB on the card so only the people who wrote on them would know that he had access to the info. To the others, it really seems like he read the info out of nowhere. He’s a very clever man. And I’m not a little disappointed that the effects are no more than very clever trickery. Well done Derren
Saw the Southend show on Friday 18th May. The number for the £10 trick was 977 734. Derren said the guy on the phone would say 734 but he said 374.
He also turned someone away from the stage and then revealed that he had got the word right when he unravelled the scroll.
Hasnt he done the rotating table trick on tv before?
and does the oracle act actually exist? i didnt beleive that it usually takes 15 years and he did it in 2?
Do you think that because of the more magical trickery that is used in this show rather than the physical stuff he did in ’something wicked this way comes tour’ its the reason he hasnt done london dates at the same theatre? he really is ducking all over the country? stops people attending the show night after night
Paul;
I am very interested in talking to you about the £10 note trick - is there any way you can contact me or I can contact you? best wishes, D.
Paul incidentally my details are as follows
duncville -at- gmail.com
Duncville, is there any way you could share what you want to discuss with everyone else? I think we’d all be interested!!
the add a numbers effect is a classic.
if you watched his “assistant ” going arouind he asked certain peole to add numbers one on top of the other and then went to another part of the audience reversing the little book which he opened and asked another real audience member to add 3 sets of numbers written in different writing already whic always adds up to the date derren is performing.
the assistants were quite entertaining and pretty good at their job
I also saw the Portsmouth show. Derren brought on a ’special’ table to catch the box when it came down at the end. Given the fact that we had already seen a floating table of his, I wouldn’t be surprised if this table contained the final bit of paper somehow. The cards that he made the audience chose were forced upon them, (he had already shown in another trick how easy it is to force a card). He didn’t hypnotise the woman to guess the cards but just said things like; pick a number between 1 - 9, not 3 (7 was chosen) and oh don’t forget the picture cards (she chose a jack after that) coaxing her in the right direction. The 20 questions people wrote in massive letters the object they were thinking of, so the person he didn’t use’s object could easily have been included on the paper. And the final woman that was ‘most psychic’ had had probably already been chosen long before, as it was Derren who chose who called out the random numbers, she was probably chosen because she was quite distinct, and by being chosen before allowed her description to be written on the paper. I would guess everyone chosen for the final box trick was quite distinct. Those are my theories anyway.
But how he got that some guy wanted to be a referee, or someone’s daughter was going through a legal case, or how someone had won the lottery, I have no idea.
I didn’t think the ending was as strong as the last show, but I had a great evening.
Trigger: I was also at the Portsmouth show the other night, my friend was one of the ones whose object he guessed (the pedometer), and who he said had bought it with a lottery win. On the first point I assume there must have been some communication between himself and his assistants afterall it is they who came round to see what objects people had. But as to the fact she bought it with a lottery win I am baffled, I was sitting next to her and don’t recall her mentioning it at any point to the assistant and she denies having done so.
A very good show though, almost as much fun trying to work it out as watch it.
Such is the nature of people’s memory. Obviously she did mention it or write it down at some point or else no-one could possibly know. Unless you belief in stuff like “mindreading” or DB’s take on it - that bodylanguage can be read to the detail of “i bought it with lottery money”! I think not.
Yes that old adding the numbers effect is SO old it’s untrue. Straight out of Corrinda. It’s great to think it still works. The way people have recounted it to me didn’t mention that they had an assistant and someone else added up the total! Again such is the nature of people’s memory.
Trigger: I doubt very much that he used any psychological forcing. It’s not reliable enough for a stage show. He certainly didn’t use any in his last stage show despite the impression he gave.
I like his lie about the Oracle act taking 15 years but on taking 2 for him. I think you’ll find it takes about 15 minutes to learn but a few weeks to rehearse to the point of perfection. I seem to remember him telling similar lies about that walking on broken glass trick, which takes about 1 second to learn - you just walk over smallish bits of glass and they don’t cut like you might expect.
I think it’s great that he can use all the old tricks only slightly dressed up in his “I can influence/read you using modern psychological methods” angle and still be very entertaining.
I went to see the show last night in Ipswich, and thought it was great. I think i’ve sussed out part of the scroll at the end, being revealed. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll remember DB ‘passing out’ at the end of the oracle part. When this happened the curtains closed for quite a few minutes, and the box was not on view. This would have given time to put the scroll into it, with the relevant details. Agree about the £10.00 note trick, there was definitely somebody backstage near the board he was writing on, giving plenty of opportunity to be handed something. Still a great show, but think I enjoyed the previous one more.
with regards to how he worked out the starsigns on the little black envelope trick - the cards inside did ask for birthday.
It doesn’t take much to memorise which starsign you’d be in based on a date - ask any hairdresser/nail technician
First of all Derren Brown is the best thing to appear on television “period”-he should have won the bafta. but…………
After seeing Derren Brown’s “An Evening of Wonders” three times at different venues -I wonder whether he has gone to far with the detail this time -the fill in cards have all the information he requires if they can be “read”
The people go on stage one at a time to put them into the glass bowl -that is when they can be viewed/filmed/and a psychological reading taken
The envelope from a youth with similar contents is at each show
The people who write the numbers/ read from the book/the lady chosen to open the scroll- have been in the same area of the audience for the three shows
That leaves the banner at the end -the box is not out of view the whole show- it made a slight wobble with a few seconds to go (Ipswich)
Option (a) the plastic scroll tube is added to the box in the last seconds
(c) the banner is made from electronic paper and the text is added wirelessly at the end ( electronic paper is a reality- look it up on the web)
(b) Derren wrote the scroll out minutes before the audience entered
Gordon, ur wrong mate….”The people who write the numbers/ read from the book/the lady chosen to open the scroll- have been in the same area of the audience for the three shows”
i know the person who read from the book at the show i saw, he sat next to me, and i know for a fact he hasnt been to more than one show.
i went to see this last night at Sailsbury.
We got the numbers 141 372 on the phone call.
Great theory on the box. I had forgotten that the curtains shut at the end of the Oracle act. I find this exceptionally relevant as we had the planted “kiddie” card which was right before my card was called out.
I was also the reference to the oracle act on the scroll at the end, so the kiddie card must have been telling the writer of the scroll that they should write down the next person’s “thing”. Mine was Firework Phobia. I was the second to last entry on the scroll so if the lady at the end had already been picked, there was enough time to write the scroll whilst Derren kept guessing things for him then to collapse and the scroll put in the box. There was a pair of feet behind the curtain underneath the box when the curtain closed.
Was the lady a stooge or was she chosen by peeping through the curtains as the guests trickled in, like in an episode of Jonathan Creek (the one with the blonde woman doing the Psycho act)…
Our lady had: black Jacket, white skirt, black and white top, green sandals and was three off (77).
Although you never saw what number Derren had written on the card, he just said the number was 80.
Our scroll was: China (from the green/blue box), then Toffee (from the one who got sent away from the 20 questions game), then we had 2clubs, 7 hearts and 7 clubs from the cards game, then firework phobia which was me and then the lady at the end…..i think that was it…
well, all in all I believe everyone here has worked out the crux of the main acts.
It was a good show and worth seeing, however I still don’t think it was as original or inspiring as the last tour.
Was the last tour the one with the Daily Mail trick at the end? Because I thought that show was pretty lame, except that effect. I could almost immediately work out how every effect could be done. I worked out the last effect but that took some thinking.
Hi Taylor,
I did not mean that it was the same people - but approx- the same areas of audience, was the book read with a torch/camera (the plot thickens)
The lady at the end hardly touched the banner (Derren whisked it away before she felt the circuitry-methinks) when it ended up on the floor it seemed rather rigid.
if it is electronic it is the cutting edge of technology- I must go again to concentrate on certain areas.
Its interesting what gayle has said. I think the lady at the end is not a stooge, but chosen in advance, the night i went she had white jacket, and trousers and pink top. she was three numbers off as well. She said 97, and DB said he had written down 100, and it was only afterwards I thought we never actually saw what he had written. The information on the scroll was different, as obviously it is relevant to each individual show. I don’t think Gordon thought the ‘book person’ etc was a stooge, just that it was relevant where they were sitting. How many shows is DB doing 37? What are the chances of somebody bringing a book along with them in the first place, and at every show.
Just wondering Gayle, what did you mean by you had the ‘kiddie’ card before yours was read out - was it your initials he said?
Nozza, are you a magician or just very clever, working everything out - share some secrets with us, if you can.
I meant the planted card from the child under 16 as mentioned by Jeff - good aside was the card from CH - a young boy who probably wrote something silly like why r u a w**k**.
That planted card, was directly before my card was read out suggesting to me that the planted card signelled to the person writing the scroll to write my fact down for the reveal at the end.
I was just wondering if this theory was backed up at other shows i.e. the planted child card was read out, then the next person chosen was the one that ended up on the scroll at the end….
I am now certain that the curtain closure was when the scroll was put in the box, and i’m certian that the people at the Sailsbury show were not supposed to see the feet of the person putting the scroll in the box behind the closed curtain
I thought it was clever how quickly he changed into the gorilla suit….I knew there was something up when he was hiding behind the whiteboard….but still quite clever….did any of you guys see the gorilla come on the first time?
Re the box-
in the three venue’s I have been to the box is on view all the time and is not covered by the curtains at any time. That statement is made at the beginning of the show- I hope that is what I saw!!!
the woman at the end of the liverpool show was 3 off as well (39 instead of 36 and she was at the front, on the right)… but i’m sure she was shown the card that DB had written the number down on.
some one told me they were looking the first time the ‘gorilla was stealing the banana’ and apparently the banana just fell backwards as if pulled by a string and no one in a gorilla suit actually came on at all.
the scroll at the end of liverpool was:
Brazil (from the green/blue box), then Shark (from the one who got sent away from the 20 questions game), then we had the 3 cards from the cards game (which were different to the ones mentioned by Gayle, but can’t remember exactly what they were), then big yellow taxi which was from the oracle act and then the lady at the end (long brown hair, blue jeans, silver sandals, purple n green flowery top, 3 off).
Gordon, you’ll have to go again to double check, but I’m 99.9% positive that the curtains hid the box, as i was watching it a lot of the time. Gayle, are you sure the box was hidden when the curtains closed, or were you not watching it? Also why would their be a set of feet right under where the box was. Also I noticed that, when DB asked for people with unusual objects etc for readings, his crew went about before hand, and spoke to people concerning them, did anybody else notice that? The details could have easily been given to DB, if this is the case. Has anybody taken part with an object, and did the crew speak to you? I missed the gorilla the first time, as I think most of the audience did, apart from the people sitting near the front where he came on. - great misdirection, as we know that is the key to the show.
I saw the gorillas both times round.
There were definatley, without a shadow of a doubt, a pair of feet in green shoes behind the curtain underneath the box when the curtains closed when Derren “fainted”.
The only reason I can see is that as Derren faints the curtain closes and the box comes down. The person comes on and puts the scroll in the box, the box goes back up again and the curtains then open.
This would fit right in with the misdirection. although you are told to watch the box, if the star of the show suddenly falls over and the curtain shuts you’re thrown into choas and you watch the curtains to see what is going on - and not the box. I would love to go and see it again and double check - oh, well have to wait for the DVD.
I sincerley doubt the electronic paper theory, or even a wireless printer theory…
…plus the box wasn’t locked even though there was a “key” hanging off of it, which suggests to me it needed to be open quickly…
I am really enjoying the conversation on this blog. I love a good mystery.
well done Gayle spotting the gorillas. can you remember at the start of the show, and the curtains are drawn, the box was not on show. Not until they started the bit with the film, and the curtains were drawn, did you see the box. I agree with you, when he faints, I think thats when the scroll goes into the box, it makes sense. I think if they did do a DVD they would edit it, so not to make that obvious, by zooming in, or concentrating on the audience reaction. If anybody is reading this, and hasn’t yet seen the show, but is going……. watch the box, when he faints! Its the book part thats puzzling me, Taylor did you say you knew the person who read from the book at a show, was he a friend of yours?
To Nozza:
yep - I preferred the last show (the one with the daily mail) a lot more - the trickery was a lot more involved and convoluted. The recent tour seemed to be more a collection of already well known tricks and psychological gimmicks - stuff liek pendulum swinging/table moving; can be done by anyone and struck me more as a filler.
As for the tricks, electronic paper is a no-go - I’ve seen prototypes and it would be quite distinguishable.
The most likely thing regarding the scroll was that the box was unlocked and empty, the scroll written in the side of the stage and inserted into the box when it was dropped during derren’s ‘dizzy spell’
Annoyingly I missed the banana vanishing >:(
Thanks for creating this board! I have sooo enjoyed reading it!
I have been to see Derren on all 3 tours and loved them all.
Some of the effects I think I did work out after days of thinking about it! I worked out that the person picked out for the box trick is always distinctive looking and we have only Derrens word that she/he are the closest to his number. Obviously, they are chosen beforehand and added to the scroll. I’m sure the box didn’t go behind the curtains but when it is brought down the scroll is probably hidden in the table. I believe some of the cards do get back stage for him to read during the interval but the trick that really foxed me was the £10 note which now makes sense if it was not real and could be printed once numbers said.
I think the gorilla comes on when the person from 20 questions gets sent off after not being used. I am sure this is just done as a bit of misdirection and the person has done nothing wrong but is a very important part of the show!
I think it was an amazing show and well worth every penny of the ticket price. I love trying to work it all out and have enjoyed reading others ideas on the subject.
I am still not sure how the newspaper trick was done at the end of the last tours shows. I am sure it is something incredibly obvious though. The best tricks always are!
arrgh for some reason my post about the book didn’t work :’(
For Lizzy - here goes again, regarding the book trick:
the usher gives the audience member the microphone/torch or even holds the mic in front of them. The important part is they give the audience member the torch to hold.
They point the torch down at the book, at the word they’re singling out.
Now imagine if someone with a bit of skill had put a £100-200 wireless camera inside the torch. Quite cheap and with a bit of DIY, quite easy.
A person on the wings receives the image, writes it on some paper, all derren has to do is look into the wings to see the word.
You can limit you chances on this by saying stuff like “pick an interesting/long/unusual word” (although people tend to anyway) - there’s not likely to be many directly under the light of the torch.
Also people tend to point directly at the word they have choosen - try this with someone and a torch but actually look where the centre of the torch light is focussed 9/10 its correct.
huzzah!
a small comment on the book at the liverpool show: DB guessed several different words, suggesting they would be on the page or near where she was looking, but with no success. he gave up in the end. could this have been intended to try and make people not think the camera in the torch was his method?
also, in reply to lizzy ‘can you remember at the start of the show, and the curtains are drawn, the box was not on show’ i think you might be wrong here as when we were sitting waiting for the show to start, someone in my group suggested that the box hanging from above the stage would play a significant part in the show. however, i still think an extra curtain may have come down when DB ‘fainted’. not sure though.
thanks monkeyfriend for the book info, yes that makes sense, but what about the ‘book’ person always sitting in a similar place, and actually having a book in the first place! I’m not sure about the box being visible at the beginning, I thought It wasn’t, but my husband thinks it was, still an extra curtain could have been used. We need to hear from somebody who is about to see the show, they can do the detective work for us!
I don’t think I’m derrenged yet- They take their own curtains on tour- when the audience go in the curtains are closed and the picture of Derren is on the curtains- at the top is a pelmet-the box (with spotlight on) is on a rope which hangs behind the pelmet -if you remember the text -”this box will be on view the whole show” with an arrow pointing to it
jog any memories- Excellent……
yeah - when I entered the liverpool show the hanging box was the first thing I noticed, so was def there at the beginning.
As for the book, I remember derren tried a few words - all to no success. My idea regarding a microcamera (something like: http://tinyurl.com/ccvyk) isn’t always foolproof - as I said people tend to pick interesting words in the centre of the field of light, but as with many things, people often throw a spanner in the works.
At first I thought someone bringing a book is a little odd, but then people use public transport etc., - when I used to get the train to work I’d take a book. In 1000+ people someone would likely have a book. Perhaps even a university student
Yep. The box is definitely on show as people are going in. Although, there could have been another curtain that came down when Derren fainted, can’t be sure.
A theory I heard about the lady that Derren ‘taught’ to be psychic. Derren forced the same card on all the people (7H). Then the lady named 3 cards. Derren got her to say 7H no problem: “think of a no. btw 1 and 10, not 3, think of your favourite suit”; he couldn’t, however, rely on her getting the other two exactly. When she names the three cards, of course all the people would sit down as their card (7H) was named.
I was at the show in Dorking last night and was the person picked out at the end to go on stage and read the scroll (with details of my clothes - I had a very distinctive top on). I was sat in the third row, three seats in on the right hand side (as you’re looking at the stage). It sounds like this spot was picked at other venues? Maybe it is always this seat?
Hi Sue,
The three shows I’ve seen -the lady at the end is always in that approx position-did you feel the scroll paper and was it different in any way -and what about the writing
The paper was very thin. Can’t remember much about the writing as I was so bl*&dy nervous about what may have been about to happen to me!! Pretty sure it was hand written though. I’m sure it was written during the second half of the show (everything related to stuff from the first half) and then swapped at the last minute. I had said the number 5 and Derren Brown got an envelope out of his pocket, not sealed and asked me to read out the number. It was 8 (obviously, we now know it is always 3 away) but written such a real scrawl that I reckon he had just written it in his pocket.
Saw him in Cardiff and was very impressed. Excellent night out for 20 quid. Now, down to the tricks
One theory I heard with respect to the Oracle trick was that the contents of the bowl were substituted when the audience’s attention was diverted by the table lift.
All the cards had something like ‘dickhead’ on them so he could throw one to the audience. The rest is down to a concealed earpiece so someone in the wings would be reading bits of the bowl to him.
Given the inkjet printer/10 pound note thing, this all sounds quite plausible to me.
I was also at the Salisbury show and found it very entertaining. The banana was on the extreme left hand side of the stage. When the Gorilla came on to take the banana, he emerged from behind a small curtain immediately behind the banana, while the spotlight and crowd’s attention were (focussed) on the extreme right of the stage. I don’t think the gorilla was on stage for more than a second or two, but he was definitely there.
Gayle, can you remember when you put your card in the bowl? Was it fairly early on during the interval? Only one person was allowed on stage at a time to put their card in the bowl. It would have been easy for an assistant, with their back to the audience, to put a card in the bowl, mix the cards around and take a few out at the same time, without anyone noticing.
Nobody has mentioned the ‘open the box’ trick so far. At Salisbury it contained the £5,000 and the message on the board read “Why does everyone say £500?”. What did the box contain elsewhere? My guess is that the box can be opened in two ways, so that it would always appear to have the “wrong” amount.
Yup, the board said “Why does everyone say 5000?” but the last 0 looked a bit different like it had been written at a different time.
Re the box- Salford quays the guy went for 5000- the box contained 500, Stoke 500 the box contained 5000, Ipswich 5000 the box 500, he picked someone in the circle each time- they may have a different view up there- just like something wicked -a mouse standing -an elephant sitting. he does have the ability to influence with his jumble of words that mean nothing at the time- until the recordings are played back.
Loving this blog!
I went to see Derren in Hanley on 15th May, but managed to get a ticket to see him in Sheffield on 5th June (Can’t Wait!) So I’ll be doing my best to check out the box when he faints (as I already know it’s part of the act).
Same comments to make about the other shows, the guy reading the book was behind me and seemed overly keen and eager so I suspected he was a stooge. I was on stage at Hanley doing the Psychic card trick, another blog site reckons all 3 cards were put in my head by Derren but it also states if you’ve read his books then you pretty much know how he does all the tricks. I have to say even the guys who ‘know’ magic are impressed with him. I still intend to enjoy the show as much as poss, despite the spoilers!
At the Nottingham show on the Friday night showing it contained £5000. The Q & A’s were (I think)
Q:Would you choose chocolate or tutti fruity icecream?
A:Chocolate
Q:If you were up at 4am on the internet are you bidding on Ebay, buying a book from Amazon or none of the above?
A: Buying a book from Amazon
Q: Choose a country
A: Argentina (I think this was probably only for the roll of paper trick as it was a very open chose so would look good at the end)
He then mumbled alot about green and blue boxes (I presume to sway the bloke to choose a certain colour)
I’d like to think this was more purely pyscological mind games as I was disappointed when I found out how he did the £10 note trick, I felt cheated…. :S
Off to watch his TV show now. By the way does everyone realise his ‘Trick or Treat’ cards are ambigrams? It means they read trick one way and treat when they are turned round 180 degrees. Google it if you don’t believe me……… so it doesn’t matter which card the person chooses he can make it say what he likes.
I have images of people watching and then trying to turn their heads upside down to read it……lol
yea my friend noticed the trick/treat cards and i had to turn my head upside down to have a check lol.
about the box: in liverpool 5000 was chosen, 500 was in it.
can remember that to:
If you were up at 4am on the internet are you bidding on Ebay, buying a book from Amazon or none of the above? ”none of the above” was chosen, giving DB a great moment for a joke
I am just racking my brains thinking… apart from guessing people’s names first or second try, what parts of the act used anything apart from sleight of hand / standard trickery - where was the psychological stuff?
Not criticising the show since I enjoyed it immensely, but he is more renowned for his psychological stuff and it seemed to be a very small part of the show, no?
After searching the internet, not exactly thoroughly, it seems that the Oracle act doesn’t actually exist.
As a one off performance this would have worked, but the web has allowed us to compare notes and realise that it is not irreducibly complex
this is a helpful link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalism
I saw him in Cardiff and was very impressed.
The date trick at the end is not done with stooges. It does not have to be. I do know how this is done but as it took me sometime to work it out and a lot of interweb searching I will keep it to myself.
The floating table is not done with huge electromagnets it can be done in a normal room surrounded by people. I do not know exactly how it is done though.
The Oracle Act used a number of methods. The bowl was placed in front of the audience and was in line of sight of people looking at the table lift. I don’t think it was substituted altough it is a possibility. There are a number of other methods that could have been used and although the night was about misdirection the position of the bowl just felt too exposed to chance it.
The card thrown into the audience was basic sleight of hand any magician worth their salt would have been able to get that from about their person. It was a minor humourous diversion.
As for people feeling cheated when they find out how magic tricks are done: don’t be, the large majority of tricks have very mundane explanations but that is not the point. Remember the feeling you had in that theatre and that is the point of magic. If you hunt out magical secrets you will be disappointed. The method is less important thatn= the experience for the person watching.
Also, if you feel cheated you are missing the point of what magic is.
@ alfster:
indeed the table lifting was not neccessarily magnetic - however the way it moved seemed inline with magnetic table setups that I’ve seen in the past.
The standard table lift (of the sort you can buy here: http://tinyurl.com/yr6bj2) tends to move about in a different way, but I suppose it could be that old gimmick.
Lizzy: I’m just a smartarse who reads lots of books. I know the basics - there really aren’t that many options so once you know the underlying principles you can work almost anything out from there. Some of the hardest tricks to work out are the dual reality ones - where the victim on stage is experiencing a slightly different effect to the one the audience at large is seeing. Also ones with lots of outs are hard because on any night you only get to see one possible outcome which, if the “right” one can be literally impossible whereas other nights another outcome merely delivers a good trick but one you can work out.
I can only comment on the show I saw but if you want to know my theories about any particular trick just ask.
Thanks Nozza for your answer. I would be interested if you want to share any theories, but don’t want to be to much of a ’spoiler’ for others, who enjoy the mystery.
I agree totally with Alfster. I too went to Cardiff and thoroughly enjoyed the show. However, over the next few days when I thought about some of it I was able to work out how certain things could have been done. That did leave me a little disappointed as I found his previous live shows not quite so easy to figure out and indeed majority of them I stiil cannot work out at all. Having said that it is quite right that the amazement you feel at the time in the theatre is the main thing . That’s the magic!
I went to Glasgow last night, same thoughts and comments as most people on here!
One thing I want to add though, at the part with the table when he selected one guy to move the table he said something like “have you got any idea how the table moves?” and the guy replied “no idea, unless youve got magnets under the stage” at which point Derren casually rabbled something while walking across the stage lol
I think the table turning and levitation (obviously magnets) and the oracle act -should have been replaced by psychological tricks, Something Wicked was much better.
I thought ‘Something wicked..’ was better too, although I found the second half circus tricks a bit slow. I don’t think it contained more psychological tricks, it just contained more sleight of hand presented as psychological tricks. Derren’s tricks in ‘An evening of wonders’ were presented as psychological tricks but because the effects were so amazing and far fetched no one is actually going to believe they were down to his psychological ability. Where as the tricks in ‘Something wicked…’ are very good but weren’t so ‘amazing/far fetched’ so people are willing to attribute them to his psychological ability, and so I think makes them stronger performance wise.
I think he wants to push himself by doing more amazing material, but the more amazing it is the less people are going to willingly subscribe to the theory of his psychological ability, and I think this latest show has started so show this. I think his strength lies in the tricks where people can credibly believe that it is his ‘psychological’ skill and that they aren’t just seeing another gifted magician.
That said, I thoroughly enjoy watching him, I think he is a very gifted performer and can’t wait to see what he is going to do next.
Hi
I would just like to say that the table lift is not done with magnets. I have a similar table and the same effect can be performed anywhere and totally surrounded.
I have even even be performed for a few seconds with no hands.
There are no wires or strings and no magnets
It is just a great illusion!
Paul I would appreciate a scan of your 10 pound note
Regards,
Chris
I saw Derren Brown at Aberdeen last night. I filled in the card and placed it in the bowl. He was blindfolded and said that there was a Steven who had comitted a crime. I said “stalls” and a mike appeared for me. He guessed that i had stolen a microwave from Makro.
This was the secret i had written on the card so the source of the info is known. Perhaps one of the people cueing with envelopes removed and replaced a handful after 50 or so were in.
What amazed me was that after he had revealed my secret he went on to reveal;
My full name.
I had written my initials (SWW) on the card so to guess a middle name as being William is not maybe so difficult after establishing i was male.
He then guessed Whyte as my surname, my address and my girlfriends full name.
I had purchased my tickets on ebay so perhaps the seller was connected to derren in some way but the seller is an established shop so i dont think this was the method. If it was, he could have researched me through ebay to gain the info.
The only conection between us was through voice. I did wonder whether the mic could pick up movements in your hands, as he had asked a previous participant to change hands when answering questions, but this seems very high tech and i dont know whether that information would have helped anyway. We had not talked to any stranger during our time at the theatre.
I was utterly entertained, brilliant. Obviously there is a logical explanation for these tricks but when your in the moment it does feel “magical” so i got what i paid for. I did notice the person swap for the gorilla bit and was very impressed with the book reading bit - torch could be a camera…
I was at the Aberdeen show last night too - sitting very close to you Steven! I too saw the man take a lot of cards from the Oracle bowl during the interval - he was wearing a brown jacket and a black cap, right? Such a long interval gave Derren plenty of time to memorise the information on a selection of cards and find out what day of the week people were born on. Still, I was very impressed by the whole evening.
Soo excited, going to see Derren again on Tues night, saw him at Hanley May 15th but don’t think the comments have spoiled much for me, we all know we’re being cleverly duped but the guy’s a genius. Really puzzled how he know so much about you Steven, each show is guaranteed to be different as he uses the audience so much.
I think i have worked this out. The info on the card is obvviously read and conveyed. The extra information (address, full name, girlfriends name) can be sourced. The key thing was that he stated that Claire Lynch (my girlfriend) lived with me, he could not say for sure we were connected in any other way.
I may have already said enough to explain this but if anyone wants to know more let me know.
Steven
We were at the Aberdeen show (June 2nd) too and we also saw the aforementioned brown jacket / black cap guy. He was the only person from the 150 with cards who actually turned their back to the audience completely for a few seconds. He then left the stage with his hands in his pockets and his head down. He didnt go back to a seat either, he went straight out of the hall - didnt see him come back in either. Derren made a point of advising people to fill out the cards before going to the bar. Also, what was the need for the guy only letting one person go to the bowl at a time? Surely if you’re only sticking a card in a bowl a few people could do this at the same time. This was obviously so the “stooge” could take out a few cards for Derren to read and memorise during the unbelievably long interval.
It would be interesting to find out if every thing Derren said during the Oracle part of the show had actually been written on the cards.
In saying all that though, I thought the show was fantastic.
it’s like all the best movies, you’ve just got to leave your brain at the door on the way in!
I have seen the show twice once at manchester and once at liverpool and the box with the money in was different as the first time it had £5000 in and in Liverpool it had £500 so unsure how he decides which box to bring out
To sum up what have we got- a box of money that probably has a mirror to reflect both amounts - a box on a rope with a scroll that is inserted at the last moment- a bowl of envelopes that is emptied and read at the interval- coupled with data taken from a UK info disk- the man has derring-do (boldness) -the problem is what does this tell us about the TV stuff especially the hypnosis. it’s beginning to lose it’s effect on me!!
“I think the….act should have been replaced by psychological tricks, Something Wicked was much better.”
But there were no psychological methods in that act either to my knowledge. I would appear that the magic done in that was more easily attributed to psychology than this current act to some people. I for one gave up believing in the vast majority of his claimed psychological abilities a long time ago and wish he would drop them entirely.
Have enjoyed reading all this!
Re the box… I was the person who did the box game at the Bradford show last night. I answered the questions:
1. Chocolate or Tutti Frutti ice cream? - Chocolate
2. If you were up at 4am on the interent, what would you be doing? - None of the above (nothing rude here folks, just don’t use ebay that much, and always buy my books from a bookshop… ahem… anyway…)
3. What country? England
He did something for the 3rd question where he started to ask “Imagine you’re in Homebase, would you buy a blue brush and a brown washing up bowl, or a brown brush with a blue, no, a blue brush with a brown, er, a brown blue bowl-” etc, as if he was messing up the question, and then said “oh, forget that, name any country”. Did this happen at other shows?
Anyway, I guessed £500 at first, changed my mind to £5,000 at the end, and (of course) there was £500 in the box… I too believe there’s some way he can reveal whichever amount he requires… only way to be sure he’s never going to lose. Noticed something else too…. when he turned the flip chart first it said “Why does everyone choose £5000″ and then the stage hand takes it over the opposite side of the stage whilst Derren’s changing into the gorilla suit and appearing…. when I looked back at the flip chart, the “£5000″ had changed to “£500″, as if the last zero was loose and had dropped off or been pulled off by the stage hand by accident. The fact that there was no thousands separator in the “£5000″ and no question mark at the end would support the idea of an interchangeable amount written on the flip as well.
When he revealed England on the roll at the end, I had a theory that the first 2 questions he’d asked, plus the ‘aborted’ question were somehow designed to make me think of that answer when he asked the country question (won’t go into more detail here). Still quite pleased with the theory, but all the other stuff on the roll has convinced me that it had to be written just before the box was opened… also agree that the ‘unconcious Derren’ would be the time to do it… after all, he did keep telling us to focus, and told us all about ‘change blindness’ etc… we still fell for it (as proved by the gorilla stealing the banana)!
Brilliant show!
You are thinking to deeply -it’s the same questions at every show It’s scripted, uttered distraction -at one show there was a 70 lady who had written a thesis on poetry -John Donne, Derren told her all about this at the oracle stage -then as the banner was unrolled the name John Donne appeared-he had obviously read the card and the banner had been written and put in the box later “as if by magic”
Saw him (again) in Sheffield last night and really tried to spot the banner switch, although he does handle the tube containing the scroll and opens the lid of the box towards the audience, couldn’t see anything obvious but if there is no tampering then surely he wouldn’t have to touch the box or scroll at all. Still an excellent show, some good comedy moments (easel collapsing) and having to make the girl from 20q who was sent back to her seat admit it was her item on the scroll as she hadn’t volunteered the info when it was revealed. Banana going missing 1st time didn’t involve a gorilla, it just dropped down moments before he pointed it out to the audience.
I think the guy is very good at what he does, he takes time out for his fans after the show which says a lot about him, I have nothing bad to say about him and would jump at the chance to see him again. Got chatting to a fellow fan called Claire who saw the 2 Nottingham shows as well as Sheffield, some unscripted moments occurred there and Derren apparently coped admirably!! Don’t listen to Gordon, if you get the chance to see one of the last few shows, GO!
I really rate Derren (honest)- as the man himself has said he is honest about his dishonesty -
has anybody tried spending the ten pound notes?
As mentioned before I was the one who got the £10 note from Nottingham 11th May show. I was going to put it on Ebay but when I thried to look for it I had managed to leave it in my shirt pocket. Needless to say the serial number on one end had nearly bean washed off, it is still visible but quite faint. So in one way it proves my theory of it being inkjet printer!
Just to remind the Derren Addicts,Analytical Magicians,Autopsyst’s,And Anoraks- Something Wicked is being screened again on Sunday - C4
……..Danni is on stage near the end- Derren appears to have her in a trance -he goes to the front of stage- makes an excuse about the nail damage to his nose -then makes seven clicks( I’ve counted) Danni chooses seven …….
I went to see the show tonight, in Oxford.
Luckily I didn’t know about this board before I went - I might not have been so impressed!
One thing i did notice though is that derren seems to have acquired a (real) disease - spasmodic torticollis. If you look at his neck it jerks forwards periodically - these are spasms and symptomatic of dystonia . There are different kinds of dystonia - one kind is spasmodic torticollis. (google it)
This would also explain why he moves around so much - it’s a distraction for the spasms.
A pity.
From an entertainment point of view, being bandaged up and then ‘mind reading’ is ok for a few minutes - but not 15.
The table topping is on YouTube.
the scroll is OK but i preferred the ‘explanation’ at the end of the C4 show - much more likely to make you think.
I went to see in Oxford last night too. Best £20 spent.
Glad I didn’t read all this beforehand.
So there is a clear explanation for
The Oracle,
£10 note trick
The scroll: the box was in sight from the start of the show, I personally wasn’t watching it when DB fainted. Has anyone been twice and noticed anything with regards to the box as this is still puzzling.
The other thing I still find puzzling is the object, it is obviously easy to guess the object if his assistants are there with the participants beforehand. We had a lady whose object was a pair of earings. DB guessed that she had bought them during the same day. So she must have mentioned something to the assistant. Just seems strange her mentioning it without being asked.
Has anyone participated in this one?
The moving table, I am with the magnetic suggestion earlier.
All in all the show was fantastic.
Southampton Sunday, weather sunny-outlook Deceptive.
I decided to have a last pitch at The Evening of Wonders -I think the scroll lady at the end is selected at the beginning by one of Derren’s apprentices who was at the front before the show started- I think the box containing the money is flipped by Derren to suit the choice- The people on stage wrote their items on paper which could have been viewed- there was a book reading by a lady with a lampcam- The box on a rope is I think-is a prototype Xerox machine- I used my binocular vision to look at the banner -it looks like thermal paper - it was not tampered with the whole show -I assigned my apprentice magician remover to watch it. The bowl with the envelopes in was dealt with by a conspicuous artful dodger with a baseball cap and wearing a long short coat. The average age of the audience was 28 -who suspended their disbelief gleefully. If you ever want to start a religious cult Derren you have all the right attributes.
Hi Nozza,
Mind letting me know your theory on the Daily Mail trick? I saw it on tv last night and it was mind boggling. Thanks.
I saw ‘Something Wicked…’ twice at the theatre and think I got the gist of the Daily Mail trick. My memory is only from the shows I saw as I haven’t seen the TV recording of it, so forgive me if I don’t recall it exactly.
Firstly and probably most obviously, the trick has nothing to do with what he shows you in the video clip at the end, that is just a way of giving you a credible solution and a way of making you go home happy thinking he is a jolly clever chap, (which he is of course!).
He throws the papers out into the audience and his first task is to make sure the Daily Mail is chosen somehow, he will have lots of different ways of doing this. He makes a point of mentioning the Daily Mail when throwing it; maybe a hint to the volunteer. He asks the volunteer what paper they read, if that happens to be the Daily Mail he has a hit. If not he gets them to choose ones, he positions the papers round the theatre purposefully so that he has a good chance of controlling what is picked, and amends what he says accordingly to make sure that it is picked. e.g. if a different paper is picked, the page is chosen in that paper then that same page is chosen in the Daily Mail.
There will be 4 different pages printed on the same big sheet as page 13 in the Daily Mail, so he randomly reads stories from these pages to ensure that that big page is picked. Then he gets an audience member to rip it in half and give half to a friend. He then continues with the person who now has page 13. He again makes it seem like they have a choice of which side to use but untimely he chooses the side with page 13. Then he gets them to rip it up very small.
At this point I saw him reach into his pocket and hide a small bit of newspaper in his hand against the mike. He then receives the ripped up pile and cleverly puts his bit of paper into the pile somehow, so that it is at the right number. Then as this is the piece of paper he has planted you can be sure that there is only obvious word for the volunteer to chose, and hey presto he has an amazing finale.
I think that was the gist of it, but that is only what I noticed, I’m sure there was more too it than this which passed me by.
Also with the chairs trick, I am pretty certain that on the chair farthest back on the stage, just behind the backrest there was a duplicate set of cards where a switch was made. As this is the only time I saw the cards go out of view. The chairs are brought on quite late in the trick, giving Derren’s helpers enough time to have seen which seat the people came from, and which colour envelope they picked, so it is very easy to make the cards up and place them behind the chair for the switch to take place; which Derren does when repositioning the chairs.
Again this is just my theory.
No-on else commenting on the dystonic spasms then? It seems a pity if he does have an illness…
as for his head twitch, this has been around for years - although it seems to be getting worse these days. He also mentions it in one of his books (although can’t remember which, but presume it’s ‘tricks of the mind’)
- basically I think its more of a common nervous tick rather than a symptom of something more serious.
Lots has been said about the tic being a confidence anchor; a learnt behaviour that he can’t or doesn’t want to get rid of.
Derren talks about it here:
http://www.warwickboar.co.uk/core/arts/interview_1_5_2006/
“It did start off as a way of getting people to agree with me. It has since turned into a ‘thing’ that I don’t mind because I think any hints of weirdness add to it. It’s sort of ended up crossing into a habitual tick. Sometimes I do play up to it whilst performing, and when I’m self conscious then I find myself doing it anyway. It’s one of those weird things.”
Hi Trigger,
Thanks for that. As I recorded the show, I actually rewinded to the bit where he talks to the audience about tearing the newspaper up into small pieces. The funniest thing is whilst asking the girl to tear the newspaper up there was no microphone in his hand (as he already had one of those small mikes that you clip onto your clothes), when the lady handed over the pieces of paper, there was the mike in his hand! When I played the show in slow motion after that, you could actually see him slip something into the stack of paper.
For all of you puzzling over the floating table … no I’m not going to reveal how it’s done. If however you have £’ssss to spend and really want to know just type Losnaders Floating Table into Google and that should help you.
Was lucky enough to meet Derren after the show at Woking. A really nice friendly guy.
I was at Bristol on June 17th. I have been fascinated reading everyone’s contributions and theories. Maybe I am a little disenchanted now, though… Innocence is a wonderful thing!
The only bit I can add relates to the 6 people who were brought on stage near the beginning and asked to think of an object each. They were all made to wear big stickers (numbered 1-6 I think) with large peel-off backing. There was absolutely no real requirement for these stickers, as the numbers were never materially referred to in the act. Whatever trickery was used (and my money is on a camera looking down on the respondents writing the objects in large letters at the table at the back of the stage… why else all in one place and in large letters?), the numbers can only have been a support for DB to recall who had thought of what. As a result of ‘labelling’ the respondents, DB was left with a messy stack of backing paper in his left hand. This masked the fact that, as he reached off stage with that left hand, ostensibly to retrieve a mic stand (which was never actually used!), the person who gave him the mic stand also passed him a sheet of paper with it (I was sitting at the end of the gallery and could see into the wings a little). He then quickly read the sheet of paper before folding it in half and proceeding to ‘mind-read’.
I don’t want to pick on Laura, one of the early posters. But it was interesting to see how she heightened the experience by misstating it. Performers like Brown count on people magnifying the mystery by misremembering or mischaracterizing it afterward.
First Laura claimed that no one could know her computer password number. She said she was amazed that Brown could guess a 14-digit number. She said it wasn’t written down anywhere. Well, getting the number right under those circumstances would be astonishing.
But eventually, after someone asks her, she admits she wrote it down on the paper that went onstage! Don’t you think that’s a relevant piece of information in figuring out the trick?
The only question is how Brown could get at the info inside the envelopes, which is much less of a mystery feat than genuinely guessing a 14-digit number that was never written down.
Now that the 2008 AEOW dates have been announced it will be interesting to see what changes the great man makes to his “brownian motions.” By now everyone
knows how he does his tricks using NLP “Neat Lens Protocol” and the amazing interval envelope stealer. Maybe some enterprising audience member will take an electronic
jammer.
Kind regards Tom.
Hi,
Just found this blog - interested to hear a bit more about the scroll in the box at the end … did he by any chance have it lowered onto a table, then opened it and took a plastic tube out, and the scroll was in the tube?
I live in Germany, so didn’t know he was doing a tour (would have loved to have gone - big fan), but we have recently had to endure an awful series of live programs called “The Next Uri Geller”, in which “Germany’s top mentalists battle it out for the the honour to become … the next Uri Geller”. One chancer on it, who unfortunately got through to the final with a load of really cheap tricks, did something similar - a prediction sitting in a box - he had three moderators come on stage, and they each shot him with a different coloured paintball gun. The box came down, and the scroll inside showed that he had predicted the colour of gun they would choose, the order in which they shot, and where on the body they would hit him. This was also used on the US version of the same thing. The solution was hacked to death on the forums here - could pass it on if you want, suitably marked “SPOLIER” …
Won’t do anything unless there’s a need for it though …
Cheers,
Keith
Why the debunking…it’s a night out at the theatre and I bloody enjoyed myself, the feeling of amazement and wonder I felt and the conversations it provoked with my partner all added up to a good night out.
It IS all trickery and deception, and on closer inspection and reading of the posts on here you realise you’ve been “duped” for want of a better word. But the sheer hard work and preparation that obviously goes into the show and the feeling it gives you when you watch Derren perform are undeniable. He deserves far more than a “look how clever I am, I’ve worked out how to do it” response. I know he’s not psychic or magical and perhaps that is even more amazing in itself.
DERREN BROWN ROCKS…!
Hi,
Why the debunking? Because I have just read through this thread, and many people are having a go at explaining the tricks. I understand your point about the “look how clever I am”, even though I don’t agree with it, which is why I posted the *offer* rather then the *solution* (or rather, the theory to the solution, as that is all it is). If it’s not wanted, then I simply won’t post it - I’m not a b*st*rd.
I’m glad you managed to see him - I only found out about the tour a few days ago, and now everything’s sold out - I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I’m jealous
Another answer to the “Why the debunking?” question - some people are happy to have been amazed, other people like to know how it’s done. Each is as perfectly valid as the other, and neither side should judge the other. However, those who like to see solutions should not spoil the enjoyment for those who don’t - that is clear.
Cheers,
Keith
In response to your post Keith, I had just got in that night from the show(Dublin) and curiosity got the better of me. So off to the internet I went. Me and my partner were genuinely amazed at the show and even though I’ve read his book and know full well it is trickery, I wanted more. So I found this thread and part of me got all defensive and wanted the “Magic” to last.
I know Derren has a lot of fans who go to several shows to see how it’s all done. Maybe I should have left it alone!
This is the first live show of his I’ve seen and it was Totally Awesome. The guy is a genius..FACT.
The response he got from the audience, a standing ovation, and the way he makes everyone feel part of the show is entertainment at it’s best.
Debunk away at your leisure DB fans/critics, I for one will never forget that show and I urge anyone who can to go and see one of his shows
Seen derren last week in newcastle and the show was amazing.
I come home after being very entertained, as the show and performance was amazing. Does anyone have any idea how derren manages to perform his “seeing with his fingertips/lillian keeble routine”, as ive yet to see an explanation how this is done.
hey, im going to see derren brown tomorrow for the evening of wonders I was just wondering if any of you could tell me how long it is? and if it starts at 7.45 what kinda time it would finish? thanks a lot.
Hayley it finishes at gone ten, between 15 and 30 past if i remember correctly. Don’t hold me to that.
Hayley, please let us know how the show went… we’d love to know what he performs!!!! We’ll be eagerly awaiting your posts!
Ian; did Derren perform the fingertip reading on his stage show? Or are you talking about the one he performed on TV. If you can describe what you saw on stage, I can shed some light…
Also, if you can give us all a rundown of what you saw on the show, it’d be awsome! Believe me, these effects are not beyond our understanding if we have a clear aggreement on what actually happened!
For anyone interested to see how Derren does his stuff, do yourself a favour, and after the show WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING you remember of what you ACTUALLY saw during the show; not what you think happened, but what you saw! Mentalists, psychics and magicians exploit the discrepancy between the two to create miracles.
These shows seem like they will be entertaining as hell!!!
It’s a red herring to ask about them nobbling the box during the show. The end of the scroll contains info about the ‘psychic’ number guesser, so that bit of the scroll must have been written right at the last minute. He therefore must substitute the scroll there and then, after the box comes down.
By the way, I saw the show last night in Dartford.
I’m surprised that comments for this show go back almost a year - I’d assumed this was a newer show.
It’s funny to see by reading the comments how much of the ’script’ is virtually unchanged.
I had theorised that the friend phoned up on a mobile might have been hearing instructions that the audience doesn’t hear, but the inkjet theory is ‘cleaner’ and less likely to go wrong.
Well I have seen the show now and to be honest I thought it was amazing and so original. I’ve been thinking about it and i do not understand how he does what he does and claims to not be physcic. The show was very clever and kept you on the edge of your seat. When he blindfolded himself and picked random people from the audience and told them what they was thinking was mind blowing but thinking about it there must of been something else to it, is it all a fix? I dont think it is but i just do not understand how he does it. The raising table I found a little strange because it was not like anything he had done already. I very much enjoyed the show and he still is such an interesting and brave character.
I look forward to his future work.
“I’ve been thinking about it and i do not understand how he does what he does and claims to not be physcic.”
That’s just because you don’t understand how the trick was done!
i went to watch him last night at torquey and it didnt finish till gone 9. it was really got. never notcied his twitch b4 last night. weird. he got most things ring from the audience. was really good. well worth te money
it was really good. i ment to write sorry.
I saw Derren last night too… princess theatre torqay and he didnt fail to amaze me and ive been a fan of his since he started out! 10 out of 10 for entertainment!
Hi - saw the Torquay show last night - here are the details:
Chocolate, none of the above, Afghanistan, £5000.
Numbers read out by person on phone - 137, 717 (i think). DB guessed 347 - seems to be same for all shows.
Three cards routine: 7H, JC, 8D.
‘Teenage card’ = cock.
Object chosen - ‘a small film canister containing fishing flies’ (as if ‘people reading’ could reveal that!)
Some oracle reads - names of womens three children, someone had stolen printer from work, names of someones cat and someone elses dog, a woman who had lost 9st, a bloke who wanted to know whether his pregant wife was having a boy or a girl. All had their names, ages and starsigns accurately guessed (names were all first time - I only remember Kevin & Amy).
Interestingly - during the ‘throw your thoughts at me’ part - he said “a woman in mid-thirties with a cat, name beginning with L” then “name is Lisa”. This matched my girlfriend, much to my astonishment who then stood up. When DB said “are you 36?” she said “younger…” (33), and DB immediately said “its not you - is there another Lisa, 36, with a cat?” so these ‘thoughts’ were obviously also acquired from the cards. I’d have loved it if my Lisa had said “yes” to being 36, then to the star sign, and then “no” to the name of the cat! I guess DB would have just said “it doesnt always work…” and used it as misdirection for it being ‘real’ (like occasionally in the TV show).
Woman psychic at end was also in a similar position to other shows. I think it is clever that the final reveal is always ‘off by three’ - if it was to read the actual number she chose there wouldnt be time to write it (as it is switched during the faint). ‘Off by three’ gives the illusion of being amazingly accurate without actually being specific - DB must write the number 3 above her guess (who has been previously chosen and written on the banner) with a Swami Gimick (a thumb pen) on the card whilst others are guessing. He actually rejected someones guess because ‘its too close to someone elses guess’ (obviously too close to hers - meaning that hers wouldnt have been closest and ruined the gag!)
Someone in the audience (upstairs) shouted loudly “The bananas gone!” to which Derren said “you’ve just ruined it for everyone else!” and on the banner wrote “someone shouts banana is gone (shit)” which got a laugh. The banner seemed a lot more detailed than I remember it from last year.
I am pretty sure that a second curtain falls during the faint, covering the hanging box. It is a different colour and certainly seems closer.
My impression of this show is that it is almost a little too fast and frenetic - DB seems to be trying to overdeliver to perhaps mask his apparent guilt at fooling everyone! I think a slower pace but with more grandiose style would actually enhance the better effects, whilst pruning away the weaker ones (e.g. imo the pendulums and table spinning).
Also - everyone keeps saying what a genius Derren is - lets not forget ANDY NYMAN who directs the show and writes it (perhaps even contributing the majority) with Derren.
Cheers,
Will
PS to my last post…
The 6th word (revealed on the banner) was Pingu. He mentioned it three times on the banner - obviously to continue drumming it in until the audience member shouts “that was me!” perhaps in previous nights the person hasnt coughed up (as someone mentioned).
Another thing I wanted to mention was this: the girl who was picked to pick the three cards - when DB pretended to hypnotise her, she was laughing very nervously. DB tried to cover it up whilst talking in his ‘hypnotic voice’ about forgetting what he had told her, but she kept giggling and moving. It was quite embarrassing to watch! (I was front row). I suspect dual reality is at play with whatever he told her.
Also - my observant girlfriend Lisa mentioned that she saw two matchbox shaped objects on Derrens thighs beneath his trousers - I didnt spot this and have no idea what she meant or where it relates to the show - but she is adamant about this. If anyone else is seeing the show - look out for this and clarify! She mentioned it to me after the table floating, but I didnt hear her properly and she clarified afterwards, by which time I couldnt see for myself.
Also - Derren took the bandage off his eyes for some reason - different to last year when I saw it - seeing him there with a bandage wrapped around his ears looked a bit ridiculous! Plus he could obviously hear their responses, so was utterly pointless.
I’m particularly interested with the ORACLE routine. What’s the deal? People write things, put in an envelope and then put it in the bowl? If derren doesn’t go near the bowl, then what justification does he offer as to why things need to be written down in the first place?
Also, could someone please briefly let us know what the actual tricks, or ‘effects’ were that derren performed on the night? I’m hearing bits about things everyone noticed, but I don’t know what the actual appearance of the tricks were!
e.g. what is this Kid card? and what is the trick with the deck of cards, etc….?
I live really far away and would have to travel overseas to see derren’s show! This is as close as I can get! God I love his stuff!
Willbox, the ‘kid card’ said ‘cock’ on it the night I saw it too. And the stolen printer was the same too! Every now and then though, someone WILL have stolen one on the night and will be really impressed! After all, someone above said they’d stolen a microwave.
I don’t think he ever pretended that the bandage was making him deaf. It was just covering his eyes.
It seems the extra object is always mentioned on the scroll three times before he throws it open to the audience.
“these ‘thoughts’ were obviously also acquired from the cards.”
I don’t think so, I think he’s just playing with averages here that it’ll fit SOMEONE.
Hi Andrew
Interesting about the printer - you’re right, its a stereotypical ‘work place’ object that someone might steal. No one owned up to it in the show. Derren said something like ’someone did see you - a Jack, or Jacob, Jackie, something like that’ before moving on - to the rest of the audience it looks like someone might have put up their hand, and you imagine someone is nodding to his ‘guesses’ but nothing was said out loud by an audience member.
The ‘thoughts’ were definately acquired from the cards though - the information was far too accurate (i.e. again name, birthday, trivial fact - which was the information asked for on the cards alongside the ‘question’). Derren also wouldnt risk just going along with averages - although I do think the printer must fall into this category as a one off ‘throw it into the audience, see if anyone bites’.
In my opinion its a shame that he doesnt go for some more genuinely psychological routines - at the expense of total accuracy, they would be more interesting in terms of genuine psychological ability. As every single part of the show had a failsafe mechanic behind it, Derren can only really be called a ‘magician’ and no longer ‘psychological illusionist’ for the show.
Codesaffron - it would take far too long to write all the routines out! I’m sure it will be released on DVD eventually (as the last Something Wicked tour has just been), particularly as its just about to enter a West End run and will be ripe for filming.
WILLBOX:
Also - Derren took the bandage off his eyes for some reason - different to last year when I saw it - seeing him there with a bandage wrapped around his ears looked a bit ridiculous! Plus he could obviously hear their responses, so was utterly pointless.
Why is that utterly pointless, he wanted to hear them say yes or no…therefore its not pointless as he needed to hear them?
Furthermore, i was sat very close to the front (Torquay show, 21st) and I really believe the box WAS NOT covered by the curtain as i recall thinking as soon as the curtain went down to check it was there…and it was??
Thanks SS, what I meant was why was he wearing the bandage as it doesnt serve a function. He said it was too minimise ’sensory input’ to allow the ‘thoughts to absorb’ but then he immediately pulled it down from his eyes and could obviously still hear everything, so I didnt really get why he wore it.
My memory is that the curtain seemed closer so I presumed afterwards it was the moment that the box was covered - however I stand corrected by what you say. There obviously must be another way that the roll is placed into the box. Others have said that the table he used for it to be lowered onto is quite specific (why use a table when it could just be lowered to the floor) - so may have mirrors hiding a gadget that pushes the tube up before the box is opened.
WillBox: oh right! I see what your getting at now..with the whole bandage thing…yes i wonder why he did that? maybe he was trying to reconstruct how it used to happen in the past?! Although..i do believe his vision was impaired by teh lighting that was directly beneath him and so i do think he wouldnt of been able to see very well (if at all) as it was so bright, and if anyones been on stage with normal lighting they should know how difficult it can be to see the adience so i can only imagine how hard it would be to off seen us with that bright lower light shining up at him too!
And Willbox…that gorilla thing…how he was in the suit, how did u think that could have been done? i was thinking about it for a while then realised he wa son the right of the stage for quite a while behind that clipboard thingy before the gorilla appeared from the other side…do ou think he could have swapped positions there with the other man before reappearing on the other side-walking behind the curtain etc to come out as the gorilla??
I really don’t see how he could have found out what was written inside the cards!!!
Hi SS
He was NEVER behind that flipchart - this is the second time I have seen the show so I was watching this bit very closely! As he walks behind the flipchart (which is right over to the left after the mobile phone routine) he actually walks off the stage. Someone else quickly grabs the board from behind and moves it over to the right - we assume its still Derren - and they are playing Derrens voice through the speakers. He has about 7 seconds to get into the costume before reappearing. I think this is the best bit of the show - a genuine piece of cleverness that really does leave you feeling weird!
mmm strawberries (indeed)
The answer to that has been figured out already, and is in the above posts. Think about this: why would only one person at a time be allowed onto the stage? What might Derren not want someone to see? How easy do you think it would be for a stagehand to take cards out of the bowl? Can you see how Derren might get hold of a handful during the interval?
Yes WillBox, i have read the majority of the previous comments, forgive me for stopping nearer the end! But i really really still don’t see how it could have been done. I saw the show, I didn’t move during the interval, no one came on stage. Was anyone seen in the wings? I dont think so?!
One person would only be allowed at a time as otherwise havoc could occur! Pure and simple really! If it wasn’t derren and some other show, for health and safety reasons (which we know are more in place now than ever these days) one person would only be allowed, to prevent, shoving,pushing etc…you know the score! Also, one would only be allowed for DB to emphasise that no one could hide in a crowd if more than one went on at a time and so it’s viewed in front of everyone to witness nothing suspicious went on.
Additionally, even if Derren did get hold of a handful, remember he went through quite a big load of people didn’t he? I think it would be quite a difficult task to attempt to remember all the facts that were on the pieces of paper. The interval was only, what, twenty minutes? And, there was a big queue of people who put their pieces in nearer the end of the interval rather than the beginning.
I think DB would be extremely proud of the debates he can cause! Look how long this blog has been going. Sure it will continue forever… until his shows stop!?
There’s not THAT many to memorise. And Derren decribes many memory techniques in his book. They DO work. At any rate, I think it’s quite possible that he has methods to receive information from off-stage accomplices. I’m guessing that is how he supposedly ‘memorised’ whole phonebooks for his show a couple of years back, where he was able to say the phone number of any volunteer in the audience. My theory was that he had a device strapped to his leg that gave him answers in morse code.
The cards could have been read before they even got put in the bowl. Each volunteer had to stop and pass a stagehand on the way to the stage. The stagehand might have been able to pass each card over a light that rendered it transparent, and took a pic at the same time.
Ermm, Andrew Ryan, im sorry but your ideas are rather far fetched and more liekly suited to a spy, FBI agent etc, rather than derren brown.
also… the first ever post about this topic was by someone who was one of those people’s who’s card was chosen and their question was…
“How did the bee ‘waggle dance’ evolve?”.
The asnwer was guitar. DB got it. Now please enlighten me about this morse code method. My first thoughts when i saw that was the question that the participant asked was a country, i believed it meant where did it come from, or who by etc. But DB knew the participant meant it was his first song he played on the guitar. There was no information ANYWHERE that would have given DB that answer. Oh unluess this morse code equipment has abilities to see through envelopes as well??
mmm strawberries, I fear that you of falling within the illusion of ‘Derren is a mind reader’? You have to accept that he is a magician (particularly within this show EVERYTHING you see is down to a fail-safe mechanism - and never underestimate the dirty trickery that could underlie an effect!)
It was actually EASY to get hold of the cards from the bowl. Its hilarious that you actually wrote this: ” I saw the show, I didn’t move during the interval, no one came on stage. Was anyone seen in the wings? I dont think so?!”
LOADS of people went on the stage! What I was trying to direct you to with my questions about one person being allowed at a time was this - one of those people who went up on the stage didnt put anything in - they took cards out! A few people have commented here about seeing someone stand with their back to the audience, take something OUT of the bowl, then NOT return to the audience but out of the room completely (and then no doubt into a door to go back stage). Can you see how easy this would be? Plus, people are also asked to write their birthday and a trivial fact on the cards. Derren could easy use his mental stories to tie facts together about people in a short time.
Don’t underestimate the lengths that are gone to to achieve an effect. E.g. in some of the shows people are given a torch to shine at a page in a book they have in their bag, Derren then tells them a word they are looking at. This is acheived with a small torch camera! Why else would they be given a torch to read when there are theatre lights everywhere? Everything is relevant, and these little cameras exist. Its not farfetched - its how this illusion is done.
ok WillBox. im sorry i ever doubted you and the others (!)
I now feel targeted for just believing in the moment.
I fear for YOU that you don’t just go to watch his shows to take pleasure from them but to pull apart ever intricate detail that makes the show amazing and so watchable.
plus…please could one person agree with the fact that a tool that would be sending morse code to Derren in a LIVE show where he has to THINK AHEAD for anything to go wrong (despite however well planned everything may be) and then having to decipher every little dot to work out what letter it is then what word and THEN what sentence is being said…is a little far fetched??
IF not…i think you all are delusional - and HA-all down to DB and his actions “lol”
and sorry again…for posting again…but just for you WillBox i am not falling under that illusion (like what i did there) i do not believe DB is a mind reader… more a very skilled psychologist who just happens to use it in more ‘magical’terms.
and btw… i find it “hilarious” that you actually wrote this: LOADS of people went on the stage!
Well done WillBox for stating the obvious. I meant that…yes people went on the stage, those who were participating with the task in hand. However, i did not see any persons who looked suspicious or disappearing off to a secret door ready to feed DB the answers! And really…wouldnt that be very obvious.
i’m not saying DB is an amzing mind reader and everything he does has no tricks/illusions going on, im simply saying he’s an amazing performer who keeps everyone on the edge of their seat and left wondering how he manages to do what he does, and left wanting to know how he did things. To put it bluntly: he has a skill andi doubt anyone will ever really know how he does his trickeries.
P.S- someone said how they felt embarrassed for DB as the girl he hypnotised at the Torquay Show was giggling when he said things to her etc etc… during hypnosis people can show signs to reply to questions they”re being asked and so her giggling was fine. Also, when DB asked how she did her card trick she said she didnt know etc…i truly believe her as anyone who was there would realise she wasnt the brightest of beings and i really do believe she couldn’t put on an act and so think this itself is enough evidence she was hypnotised and that it did work.
So yes, thats one big question… how is it that she managed to know what cards the audience members chose?
Now that… is why DB is just so good!
Strawberry: “How did the bee ‘waggle dance’ evolve?”.
The asnwer was guitar. DB got it. ”
You think bees used a stringed instrument to evolve the waggle dance? Derren didn’t answer that question at all!
“and then having to decipher every little dot to work out what letter it is then what word and THEN what sentence is being said…is a little far fetched??”
That’s like saying that when you read this post you have to ‘decipher every letter to work out what it is supposed to be, then which word and THEN what sentence is being said’. If you understand morse code, which doesn’t take long to learn, and wouldn’t be the most old-fashioned or unusual skill in DB’s arsenal, then you can produce it and ‘decode’ it at virtually normal conversation speed. You listen to a row of dits and dashes and it is no more ‘code’ than written English.
My point was purely about how he could be receiving messages from offstage. If he wasn’t somehow getting information from the cards somehow, then why ask people for their dates of birth on the cards? It was so he would know their ages, and occasionally reveal their star signs and the day of the week they were born on.
“i did not see any persons who looked suspicious or disappearing off to a secret door ready to feed DB the answers! And really…wouldnt that be very obvious.”
How would they look suspicious? Would you be expecting them to wear ‘Derren Brown 2008 Tour’ t-shirts? They wouldn’t have to disappear to a secret door either, just walk off the stage like everyone else, but to the audience.
At any rate, I’d have though if you were going to get info off the cards you would do it while the people were queueing up. Or alternatively, Derren may have obscured the bowl at one point and the contents quickly fell through a trap door and been replaced with dummy cards.
If you think this sounds bizarre, feel free to suggest alternatives. The effects for these shows are often a combination of the bizarre and the banal, mixing different effects.
Getting messages via morse code would be just a harder-to-detect alternative to receiving them through an ear piece.
Ok strawberries so you went a bit defensive there and I guess I deserved it, reading my post I can see how you took it that way (it wasnt meant that way!) To answer your questions though there are a couple of reasons why I like picking it apart - and really, it doesnt detract from my enjoyment of the show at all. I enjoy the feeling of the illusion, then I enjoy taking it apart. As Derren says, “question everything!”
I agree that morse code would be farfetched, there are far simpler ways of achieving effects.
But I honestly dont believe that the girl was hypnotised. I wont go into the details as to why as its a tedious debate, but this was just misdirection and this was down to a ‘dual reality’ mechanism.
The girl picked 7 of hearts as Derren asked her/forced her to - ALL of the three cards picked by those in the front row were 7 of hearts - when Derren says ’sit down if your card was picked’, they all do individually, note that he doesnt ask them what card they actually picked.
By the way, the ‘waggle dance’ is the set of movements that a bee performs to show other bees where pollen can be found on flowers. It’s not a song that the original poster played on his guitar.
As pointed out already, when people tell of a trick they saw performed, they often miss out vital parts of the trick that, to the listener, makes the trick sound a lot more impressive than it was. For example, the earlier poster who said Derren Brown guessed her 14 digit password. The poster only admitted later that the password was written on her card. Then the trick becomes a case of getting the info from the card undetected, rather than guessing a random password. Admittedly this is still impressive, but it’s not the mind-blowing trick originally described.
Similarly, the poster who’s first guitar song was guessed by Derren doesn’t say whether or not that piece of information was written on his card.
True Andrew, if you stick to the ‘facts’ it becomes a lot easier to figure out - but its interesting how far perception can be influenced by what is implied, and also by what people want to believe.
I think that the original poster with the guitar fact (actually, its whoever owns this blog which has become a delightful debate forum!) DID put the song name (Everybody Hurts) as their random trivia fact. For them, initially, the amazement was ‘how Derren could have known what they wrote when blindfolded’, but it becomes clearer (even to them) how this could be achieved - if he already knew the info. Like you say it becomes a task of getting the information.
The Brown Delusion.
No actors or stooges were used ( what about assistants and cameras)
The box is not obscured the whole show – it has a cord with a key, it acts as an aerial for data transmission to the scroll.
In the interval a young man in the queue wearing a cap and mid length coat pockets some envelopes from the bowl (house lights are dimmed until this is done) Derren memorises the information.
A torch camera is used during the book reading.
His assistants in the aisles with miniature cameras do the rest ( items removed from front pockets into back pockets, selection of girl at the end, hair colour dress details)
On the cover of his book- Tricks of the Mind,
‘Clearly the best dinner- party guest in history- he’s either a balls out con artist or the scariest man in Britain’
Charlie Brooker Guardian.
You decide playmates.
Any theories, methods, descriptions, observations, are the result of several visits to his latest
production.
The man is god but not that good.
Alot of the controversy regarding the performance of the Oracle would be resolved if someone addressed CodeSaffron’s question, “if Derren brown supposedly “gets” this information, why does it need to be written down and placed in a bowl if he demonstrates no motivation to go and read it?”
strawberries… thank you for your comments. mentalists around the world should read what strawberries has written. Don’t run when you’re not being chased…. you’ve got your very audience raising quite untenable arguments such as Occupational health and safety to support you, and suggesting that Derren brown is above the methods of spies.
Quite funny really… no offence strawberries, but it was enlightening for alot of us.
Btw Derren’s a creative genius…. I love him; nothing entertains me more than his shows. I just felt like I should say that. It feels right.
Hi,
Now that this discussion thread seems to have woken up again - could someone please post an answer to my earlier question about the box? Was it lowered onto a table on rollers, that was maybe brought out onto the stage just as it was needed?
Tom Crapper seems to think the cord with key was acting as an aerial to write something onto the scroll inside the box - I can’t see the show myself, but if someone could give a few more details, that would be great.
For anyone about to see the show - is he very particular about how the box is placed on the table? Maybe places it a bit forward, then drags it back into position? Look at how he takes the tube out - does he seem to twist it as he takes it out?
If so, then the solution is rather more mundane than signals being sent to a device in the box to write the details ….
I would be very interested to know this for the following reason:
I mentioned before about the awful “The Next Uri Geller”, and I mentioned to someone at work about how this guy in the UK could run rings around any of the chancers doing their cheap tricks. I’ve got all sorts of DVDs of DB, and took a quick look through them to find something suitable as an example. I looked at Something Wicked, and saw him do the exact same trick someone on the Geller program had (the 4 black and one white balls, and everyone with a black ball had to tell a lie), and it had been immediately ripped apart. The solution is obvious, even though DB did it better. Then there was the heart slowing down thing, which also somebody on Geller did. I was rather disappointed - I thought I couldn’t use that as an example as somebody who, in my opinion, was 100 times better than sometting as cheap and obvious as that. And if the box prediction is the same as the one on Geller, it would be interesting to know.
The TV shows are something different, I think, but then they only show us what they want us to see. Having read the above descriptions of what he does in his stage show, it seems to me that the two things are completely different, and that the stage show is maybe something I wouldn’t want to see, for fear of being too disillusioned … I’m a big fan, and love his TV shows - they are really impressive - but if I were to see him do the sort of things I was watching on The Next Uri Geller, then … well …
Hi Keith
I agree that the stage shows are a different kettle of fish to the TV shows - however the more I realise the underlying trickery, the more I realise that the TV shows are NOT that different. E.g. I genuinely believed he used hypnosis and suggestion to stick those skewers through Robbie Williams’ arms, then felt like a fool to realise that its actually a very simple but effective trick. The same thing goes for the dog race routine.
I can’t remember the ‘opening the box’ with the detail you require, although I can confirm it was positioned on a table, and that the banner was rolled up in a plastic tube which Derren had to unscrew. I imagine that the table shoots the plastic tube into the box as soon as its lowered - its all a gimmick. The box was very plasticy and pretend looking, with a big stupid plastic key hanging of it.
WillBox: sorry- yes i did go a bit defensive there, bad day and took it out on here!!
Poor mmm strawberries, I hope things have got better since.
I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed when I realised what a small part, if any, the psycological elements play in DB’s act. There’s actually very little that he does that can’t be explained through normal conjuring techniques.
Andrew I agree totally, whilst psychology is obviously used in acting, performing, misdirecting and of course LYING, its not used at all for any tricks in the show whatsoever. I wonder how much of this is Derrens choice, or the influence of Andy Nyman (the director and DBs collaborater) who is a down-and-out mentalist? I can see why they would need more fail safe methods for a live show, but sacrificing genuine psychology for perfection seems totally unnecessary. In Pure Effect Derren rants on about the value and importance of taking a chance, especially for a psychology oriented trick, just like Chan Canasta (Derrens hero) used to do in the 60s. But he seems to have changed his mind recenly. Mind Reader really is a traditional magic show, that uses psychology as the flavour for its misdirection. DB must feel like such a total phoney delivering these psychology lies every single night of the show! Especially when pretending to ‘guess’ the words, objects, ages and trivial facts!
hello
im thrilled ive found this site cos im seeing Derren on thurs in worthing im so excited ive been waiting since dec for this but i have absolutely been waiting for this for years. I actually think im in love with derren brown (and am ignoring all rumours of him being gay)
but i wanted an idea of what was gonna happen in his show and honestly i couldnt find anything anywhere.
now dont worry im not dissapointed, actually when i watched his show that was on tv again you know the one with the newspaper thing etc. i was pleased to realise that the ’showman’ he talked of before he walked over glass was a fake, because then i started to look at his work as a piece of art and how he tricked people. and then i felt less disalussioned as to how he worked and therefore hence fell completely in love with him so hey ho ha ha i am a derren brown lover literally lover!!
so i praise him to the highest of the high he is just an amazing man, but you do have to see who he aims his tricks at, if you watch his shows his simple tricks are aimed at what would be presumed as ’simple’ people, and people who dont have strong minds must obviously easierly influenced??
thats all i had to say
so ill defo update what i thought of the show!
bye bye !!!
No derren didn’t perform the seeing with fingertips routine at the Newcastle show. However after finally meeting him after the show, i told him that it was my favourite routine and he asked if i had a wallet on me. I had, and he proceeded with amazing accuracy to read the contents of it by placing only 2 fingers inside it. I have also seen him do his routine on an american scientist on a rooftop in new york, but to have it performed on myself when i thought i would catch derren out was breathtaking. Some of derrens routine’s can be explained but as for this one ?????????
Hi ian wow im amazed, thats the thing with derren is alot of his work can be explained but then he’ll do one thing which cant which turns the balance on its head…what was he like in person? is he friendly? xx
Kitty…so lucky…although i did see Derren on Friday, but wish i was going again!!
And i had never heard that rumour??? That he is gay? It can’t be true lol!!
I personally find Derren very very funny/sacastic and love his personality.
I just wish i got to go to the stage door and meet him afterwards!! But it was such a cold, cold night the person i went with played on this and said how he’d take “ages” and so i didnt. If only we could turn back time! As Cher would say! haha!
I have just read Ians comments and see!! That is where all confusion comes back to me and just simply question How the hell does he do it!!! And reading thats just made me feel even worse (see above comment!!) for not attempting to meet him afterwards!!
Strawberries, I was there on that night (Torquay) and my girlfriend didnt want to wait around in the cold. I was a bit gutted! I have met him twice before though, so I let her get away with it. If I’d known, we could have swapped partners for a bit whilst we met Derren.
WillBox: its good to hear you share my pain!! haha. I don’t think i’m going to let my boyfriend live it down for a while, seeing as i haven’t met him ever before. Where have you met him before then? Are you from the Torbay area or did you come far to see him?
Hi Kitty,
Derren seamed a really pleasent guy (although my girlfriend thinks he’s sometimes a bit smug). However after
he read the contents of my wallet (seven different items - all correct), we where both gobsmacked and even she said
“i don’t think anyone else in the world could have done that”. if you google “Derren Brown finger reading” you
will see the routine he does on the scientist.
OMG
thank you so much my OMG was the fact that it is technically tomoro im seeing the man himself i cant even discribe how excited i am no absolutely no one understands i really think i am his biggest fan ever EVER to be honest id love to work with him because im very very strong minded, if i get picked to go on stage hence im on the fith row i will so think of what iv planned to think then he wont be able to repeat that to the audience if he really has the powers but i still am mesmerized by him, i think he has secretly hypnotized me to love him i do haha maybe i am crazy lol nevermind, i adore his carisma and his style and personality but i do have to say his roll neck jumpers in his wardrobe really do need a re-think, im keeping this page updated with my every move before i go to the show i swear xxxxxxxx
love love love
Kitty xx
Kitty, so you hate Derren then? (only joking). Could you do me a favour? When you watch the show tomorrow - see if you can do the following and report back: throughout the show, there is a box hanging from the ceiling. Towards the end, the curtains will close momentarily. When you see the curtains close, see if they cover the box. Then, once the box is lowered - try and get a good look at the table it falls upon, notice anything unusual about it. If any frisbees come your way - grab em! At one point, Derren will ask if you know anyone you could call from a mobile phone - make sure you have someone you could ring (a friend or whatever) and throw your hand up high!
Strawberries, I met him on his first tour in Cheltenham, which was brilliant. He signed my Pure Effect and a big tour poster, and a polaroid I took of him (which I have, to my utter shame, subsequently lost). Then again in Plymouth. I live in Exeter now. I have quite a lot of DB stuff, including all his work and lots of radio interviews, I study hypnosis and subconscious psychology, although these days I just enjoy him as a magician who uses psychology for performance rather than effect.
“And i had never heard that rumour??? That he is gay?”
It isn’t a rumour. DB is ‘out’ - he is open about his sexuality. The great thing is that no-one’s made a big thing out of it, like it’s a ‘news story’. Which is probably why many people don’t know.
Kitty Darling,
If you want to stand a chance of going on-stage, wear bright zany clothes, dramatic shoes and you may be picked by the spotter in the aisle- for the lady on the banner at the end of the show -and- make sure you get an envelope from the helpers at the interval and pour your heart out to DB on the card! ( you might straighten him out)
xxxxxxxxx
Andrew Ryan- thanks for that i still love him never the less
Willbox-im confused what im looking for in the box or on the box or what box? im a bit blonde sometimes
so the box will come down on the table whats meant to be in it im gonna be staring all round all the way through you know i bet the whole theatre is rigged with magic stuff
secondly i dont like frisbees
i dont wanna loose an eye 
lol
when is derrens myspace page coming back did anyone know it got close down because the ppl running it ruined it x
bit unfair eh?! xxx
ps the love love love message was a bit drunken sorry xx
pps sorry i sound really random on my comments i dont think before i type half the time sorry will plan nexts post more carfully xx
Hi. I was sat in the front row right in the middle at Torquay on March 21st. I watched the bowl with the envelopes in throughout the interval and certainly did not see anything dodgy going on. I think the fact that Derren has studied human behaviour for most of his life means he knows what kind of things people will write. I would not like to say whether the scroll in the box was put in when Derren fainted that seems a good theory. But maybe the scroll was not switched? I am not saying that the answers to 20 questions e.t.c were a free choice they were put in their minds without doubt. I have noticed one thing though, in his shows Derren uses the front row quite a lot. I have sat in it for his last two visits to Torquay and I never get chosen. I do however feel that he is studying people all the time and knows which ones he can read and which he can’t so it all goes back to that human behaviour thing again.
Hi kelly, I assure you that Derren hasn’t studied psychology most his life, he studied law at University then made a late switch into magic THEN started getting involved in the psychology of mis-direction etc (not psychology per se). He certainly has a good grasp of suggestion, but he isn’t the ‘dark jedi’ that his tricks make him out to be. He misdirects your attention to a psychological explanation (e.g. people reading, installing an idea in someones head) when really the mechanism is a lot more safe and tricksy. E.g. the 20 questions game - he doesnt put the ideas into their heads, he gets them to write them big on paper which is being filmed by a camera and relayed to him visually. Its all classic mentalism stuff. Someone mentioned that the reason he puts the big stickers on their chests is to throw the backing plastic away to the side of the stage, which is the moment he see the words - seriously if you knew the real mechanisms I think you might feel quite cheated! (I do having read this whole blog, which is great, although I do still enjoy Derrens showmanship). Also, he has no idea what kinds of things people will write, really, all of that people reading stuff is NOT an exact art - you were at Torquay, and you must realise it was impossible to ‘read’ that the gentleman to the left would have an empty film canister with flies in it?!? The people were asked to tell their objects to stagehands, somehow that information is relayed. Were you on the left side or the right side? A person next to me picked one of the three cards, it was 7H, as apparently they all were. If you think about it, everything he ever does at these shows is spot on, if he was relying on pure psychology it would probably be about 30-50% at best. Chan Canasta (magician in Britain on 60s TV) who Derren modelled himself on used to rely more on psychological probability and would make lots of mistakes (he’d get away with it with his charm and elegance), whilst Derren heavily praises this approach in his earlier books, it seems he has chickened out for the live shows and sticks to good ‘ol fail safe trickery.
Hi Willbox, When I said studied human behaviour I didn’t mean in a literal sense. Throughout his life he has clearly taking a real interest in people react to situations. For example, when he was bullied as a kid he used to count the pencil sharpenings that fell out of his bag and he watched hypnotists e.t.c. Back to Torquay. I was sitting on the left side next to the aisle, in the seat he said he used to sit in when watching the oracle performances. I saw him flick through the cards with the woman the other side of the aisle and they were clearly different suits and numbers. In the ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ Tour he was not spot on with everything 100% of the time. If it was as straight forward as you say and the guy with the fishing flies told a stagehand how come these people never go to the papers and expose it as a sham?
Kelly: “For example, when he was bullied as a kid he used to count the pencil sharpenings that fell out of his bag”
I don’t think this really happened, it was just a story he said on stage to add colour to a particular trick.
“In the ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ Tour he was not spot on with everything 100% of the time.”
If Derren got it 100% right all of the time, it would be more obvious he was using standard magic techniques. The ‘near-misses’ he puts in are deliberate to fool people into thinking he’s using ‘psycological’ techniques. It’s equivalent to the tight-rope walker pretending to wobble on the wire, to make it look harder.
“How come these people never go to the papers and expose it as a sham?”
Because they’re staff. What would they have to gain? You might as well ask why any magician’s stage-hands don’t reveal his secrets. They probably have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. At any rate, it’s not really a ’sham’. He admits to using standard magic techniques.
also… “I saw him flick through the cards with the woman the other side of the aisle and they were clearly different suits and numbers. ” What cards are shown and which are picked can be entirely different. Its a basic premise of any card picking trick - show a bunch of different cards “tell me when to stop” etc but there are many, many ways to force a card.
As Andrew said, the counting pencil sharpening things was used to offer ‘an explanation’ for how he can count the coloured beads - he asks to be slapped beforehand as if this somehow enhances his perception (and the bullying thing ties into this). But again, its all nonsense, its all misdirection. This trick is achieved because every time he does the bead counting trick (also with Jo Whiley on the show) he uses a special table to place the beads on to begin with. The table comes with sensitive in built scales, like used to count notes in banks. After beads are taken (or whatever they are) the machine is calibrated to somehow ‘reveal’ the weight and therefore quantity of what is left. This is how Derren got the number right on one tour despite them falling on the floor.
Likewise, his explanations of having a ‘florentine memory palace’ containing lots of objects for use in memory was stolen from Hannibal, and is just mis-direction for trickery. I also heard that he hasnt been banned from every casino in Britain at all - it just makes him sound good.
Kitty if you’re still reading - enjoy the show tonight and dont forget to report back!
Hi Willbox,
That business you describe with the table having a weigh scale built in - is that a theory, or do you know for sure? If you know, how do you know? On one of the TV shows, he had a random guy, and showed him how he could count all the Smarties that came out of a tube in zero seconds flat, and also say how many blue ones there were. It seems a similar thing to me …
Of course, the pain and the slapping is just for comic effect …
You mentioned earlier in response to one of my other posts something about the Robbie Williams thing - I must be naive, ‘cos I can’t see how that’s a ’simple trick’. And the dog racing thing - I did believe that was all to do with breaking people out of their comfortable thought patterns, and suddenly slipping a suggestion in, which they just hang on to, in order for something to make sense … That’s the NLP explanation … is it all of it rubbish?
Keith
Keith, it wasn’t me who mentioned the scales method, but that is how I assumed it was done.
But hey, to paraphrase Derren’s hero James Randi when describing Uri Geller, ‘MAYBE HE’S DOING IT THE HARD WAY’
Hi Keith
The table thing I read about somewhere, and it made sense when watching the clips and the tour. The smarties one may have relied on a similar mechanism, eg. the container containing the remaining smarties could be placed in a ‘relevant’ place. The Robbie Williams arm thing - take a look at http://www.metacafe.com/watch/472199/needle_through_arm_trick/. The dog races - I have heard from someone who worked at that exact track that the till assistants don’t have a clue who won or lost (which makes perfect sense) its all done by barcodes on the tickets much like the lottery. The machine knows who wins and who doesnt. The people themselves arent open to ‘influence’, they just read the machines and pay out. So ask yourself, whats easier, manipulating the machine in some way, or the person despite them not knowing either way? It then comes down to a dual reality effect - the company probably allowed them to manipulate the machine somehow on cue to Derrens suggestion, probably pitched as a way of testing the till assistants. I know it sounds farfetched, particularly if you’ve believed for so long that it was suggestion (I assumed it was an Ericksonian pattern interrupt) - but the more you think about it the more it makes perfect sense - and watching it back, you’ll start wondering how you ever believed otherwise!
Hi I was at Worthing last night.
Box was suspended in middle of stage curtain came down behind box and it was still in full view. Scroll is switched when the box comes down. Box wasn’t opened in full view of the crowd, easily switched.
Can’t believe you can buy the table he used for £400! How does it work I wonder? Someone also stole a printer.
Cards are never shown except the teenager’s one present at each show. I agree cards are removed and memorised. I also agree it was disappointing that the show was purely a magic show and we didn’t see any of the stuff that sets him apart from the crowd.
I couldn’t understand the ten pound note trick and feel happy now it’s obvious how it’s been done. Looking forward to sharing all the secrets with my other half as she mostly felt annoyed by not being able to guess how things were done. Strange how obvious things are once you know!
I had a great time and would see him again in the future, a very talented man and I’m still a massive fan
Having seen several shows, the box opens with hinges to the audience the scroll is in a plastic
tube with a screw top, I did not detect any switching or possible entry to the box from the table.
I’m still going for the electronic transmission- a wireless linear whiteboard.
Tom Crapper, I’m pretty certain the scroll is just normal paper - on the night I saw it he gave the scroll to the woman from the audience at the end. It would have been fairly obvious to her, and anyone near her, if it was ‘electronic paper’.
You didn’t detect switching, true, but he’d be a shoddy magician if you HAD spotted it.
What’s certain is that he didn’t really ‘guess’ the whole structure of the show beforehand. As far as I can see, a last minute switch is the only explanation.
Absolutely - there are a number of indicators that the scroll has been finished ‘writing’ about 10 mins before the switch. E.g. the woman is picked much beforehand. Also - rather than writing the number she guesses (which lets face it would have been more impressive - but they dont have time to write this) they always write ‘off by 3′. This then allows Derren to write his number to be three above whatever number she says. If it was electronic paper (which it definately isnt) then they could do a last second ‘update’ and have the womans number written instead of ‘off by 3′.
Here are two of the examples I have seen. The first is from The Next Uri Geller, and is in German. The second is from what appears to be an American equivalent of it. They use different boxes - the other example I’ve seen use the same kit as the first example.
The German one also gives the (guessed) solution, which I won’t actually write here in case somebody reads it who doesn’t want to - if you’re like that, then don’t look at the first video, especially if you understand German! THe second video is just the presentation.
The German one goes on a bit, but you can jump to about 07:40 to see how the box is placed on the table, and just afterwards how the tube is taken out of the box.
German:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=DcT7RVkvjYY
In this American version, it’s a clear box, but he does a lot more fumbling around inside before the prediction comes out:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=RpwZo3pkXfA
Hi, Ive just discovered this site, and noticed Ians comments about finger reading. Ive had a look at the American scientist (absolutely baffling) and the same finger reading routine he done on his last DVD with an elderly chap. Does anyone know how this is done? or how he knew that the student in the Pub scene thought of “BROADSTAIRS”?
I was at Worthing last night, front row (was the middle guy who picked a card for the girl to guess).
Very impressive show.
Of course the trick I was involved in was easy. He forced us to cut at the 7 of hearts, including the girl. So he was always in control of that.
What was interesting was that the 7 of hearts was NOT written on the paper at the end. They wrote 8 of hearts, but was this on purpose just to feign inaccuracy?
Loved the gorilla switch, genius.
Also quite proud I got 1 up on him at the circle game (or Hole Taunting I think he called it).
It may all just be mind trickery, but it left me amazed and in hysterics in several places!
“They wrote 8 of hearts, but was this on purpose just to feign inaccuracy?”
Yes, that bit is the same on every show.
Stew Hicks, could you please explain what the circle game (Hole Taunting) is? What did you do!
WILLBOX: what is the deal with the names of the objects being told to the stage hands? Why did derren say that the spectators had to tell the stage hands? thx
Hi Heather,
I am a magician myself and agree with most of the people on here as to what methods derren is using in his latest tour.
I notice that no one has replied to either you’re or Ian’s request to give an explanation how his seeing with fingers routine is done.
I, like the rest of the bloggers on here have remained silent because we simply don’t know. The “Broadstairs” routine is another routine
that no one seems to try and debunk (again probably because they can’t). Anyway its great reading everyone’s comments on this incredibly talented man.
Crimson - Derren doesnt explicitly say “whoever has an object on them, raise your hand so one of the assistants can bring a mic, then tell them what the object is so they can tell me”. Its more a case of “raise your hand so a mic can be brought to you”. At this point, the stagehand with the mic casually asks the audience member what the object is (it will be framed in terms of ‘we need to make sure its ok’ or whatever). Somehow this information is then relayed back - but unsure how. Possibly the mic is switched on at this point, someone somewhere else is listening, and relays the info (but again, unsure how).
Willbox: Thanks for the reply. Yes, it sounds like that is exactly how it is done. Rather primitive method isn’t it… It seems alot of the time he achieves the effect rather crudely. But it’s amazing that no-one really raises much questions about it, especially things like this routine. It’s a testament to his presentation skills.
Even the ORACLE routine… no-one even mentioned for the first 50 posts that everything that he “recieved” was actually written down. How on earth does he manage to pull these effects off, where practically none of the audience’s focus is on the “writing down” part, even when deconstructing it many days later????
***IAN: Honestly, I’m SUPER impressed by the finger reading effect he did after the show on your wallet… what exactly did he do? Did he hold it in his hands for a bit before reading it? Did he stall a little? Did he poke his fingertip in alot? Did he give you specific information about what is in there, or did he just say…
“Um, credit cards, some coins, 10 pound notes, your liscence, white business card and a photograph of a family member”
Anyone have any clues? Willbox, you may have a few ideas; you’ve worked quite a few things out…
Crimson - you read the contents of my wallet! How on earth did you do that?!? You only missed out the blockbuster member card, the nectar card, and some 1 dollar bills.
I honestly have no idea. In Pure Effect he talks about doing some covert wallet steal-and-replacements on someone way before an effect like this. It seems unlikely though that he’d risk trying to pull that off now, especially in the context of after a show. I know it sounds utterly insane, but I have performed rapid hypnosis on someone before that creates an amnesia (for example, asking someone to pick a card, hypnotising them, looking at the card, bringing them round, then doing a long drawn out process of ‘incredibly’ guessing their card - just to add, I’m no Derren Brown and I only did this once). I wonder if Derren would look in someones wallet whilst they are in a trance?
I love this blog, its like a secret corner of the internet
Crimson, Hole Taunting, or as I know it, the circle game, is where you make a circle using your index finger and thumb in the same way a diver signals to say O.K. The idea is to get someone to look at the circle, in which case you win. I first saw it in Malcolm in the Middle ages ago, where there was 2 extra rules, one being that you had to make the shape below your waist, and the second being if they looked at it you got to punch the person on the arm.
Derren used his version (no punching or below the waist rule) on the audience a couple of times, telling the audience it was addictive, but other than being a simple joke to make us laugh, had no real other point. He may of been using it to prove a point that he could make us look where he wanted us to.
Anyways, when he asked me to cut the deck of cards I casually reached out, making sure he was looking at the deck of cards and made the circle shape, resting my hand on the deck.
He got me back, by cleverly forcing me (as he did everyone else) to cut the 7 of hearts.
Still, getting 1 up on Derren is always good!
Stew, thats funny. Did he notice? You know what would be really funny, is if after picking his forced card, the person pretended it was something different. Then when Derren says ‘person number two, if your card has been said, sit down’ then they stay standing. Derren would surely be confused, and I like to imagine him cinematically crying “but I MADE you pick the 7 of hearts! It HAS to be the 7 of hearts!” but I expect he’d play it cool. Yes I agree the whole hole tempting thing is another nod to mis-direction which is the theme of the show, I think (which I know sounds silly considering its all mis-direction, but the gorilla etc, its all about controlling where your attention is).
He did notice, He announced to anyone who couldnt see that he had just been hole tempted. (Apologies to everyone for me calling it hole taunting, i forgot the word he used completely).
Yeah but the problem with that is you havent tricked him your just out and out lieing to make him slip up. What I would do if I could replay that moment, is cut at the top card, literally pick up the top card only, as no one ever does that. That would have made him work a bit harder
Re- fingertips, Derren has obviously taken an advanced Braille course.
Having downloaded both the German and American paint ball videos off the tube – it certainly looks like the same piece of trickery -it must be marketed by someone?
hello all im back sorry cos i went away to see the magical man i didnt have my laptop but i have to say i am totally in starstruckdum stil, i met him after the show and fortunatly he signed both my book and my program and he was thrilled to see id read my book as he could tell as my pages look well read and pages are falling out lol
but i do have to say he is the most genuine loveliest of people ever and he said i was the sweetest person hed met and i went to shake his hand and he pulle dme in and kissed me on the cheek at which point i becmae totally speechless and lost for words!!
the show was magical as expected and everything he did was brilliant i wasnt as nievly taken in as others were but totally apriciated his talent and showmen ship as a true admirer of his art would.
Im still partially speechless two days after i met him and even though he was ill he still had the kindness in himself to come out and spend a bit of time with all of us
LOVE LOVE LOVE
ps the box was never touched at all through out the show!! and even two things were slightly off on it so i can say now it wasnt tampered with at all through out his performance xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Stew Hicks- i was at the same show as you but i didint get chosen for anything. I loved it though. Im astouded by the 10 pound note trick. I loved the ending, he really takes on board what used to be entertainment for others in the past ie in victorian times.
x
“…and even two things were slightly off on it so i can say now it wasnt tampered with at all through out his performance”
Yes, but that’s WHY he deliberately puts a couple of things slightly off - to trick you all the further.
The switch would have been at the last minute, after the box comes down.
Kitty, I may be a man, I may be straight, I may be all the way in Australia, but I wish your cheeks were mine for one moment. Very jealous of your encounter.
Stew, I’d put your hole-tempting victory on your resume. You just owned Derren Brown.
I’m still baffled with Derrren’s fingertip reading of the wallet… I’m afraid without more information we just won’t know how he did it. Remember though, Willbox, that Derren only did the wallet reading for IAN after the show, i.e. he MAY have had the opportunity to wallet-steal in the informal setting. Still unlikely though. What an absolutely amazing effect. Done completely impromptu.
Hey all…again! Yes Willbox: i love this blog too it IS a secret corner!!
and we had such a good laugh talking about the show then some other person happened to have seen him in plymouth who was near by i felt like i had started up a derren brown fan club on a saturday night out!! What was more fun was that for the rest of the night, into the early hours of this morning whenever i saw these two people we played that game the circle game. ohhhhh it was fun. just had to share it with u all!
Just wanted to say that last night i went out and saw a friend who was actually at the show to see Derren in torquay when i was there-yes and u willbox!
AND id like to point out both of these people (and a few others who were with usand know of DB) didnt know he was gay, so i wasnt the only one thanks
And those who have been lucky enough to meet Derren and doesnt have some annoying person they call their boyfriend who wont let them wait outside in the freezing cold to see him, did u have to wait a long time? and do many people wait for him?
Crimson: I’m certain that no one stole or even had the opportunity to steal my wallet as no who was at the show, knew we would be staying at the end to meet derren. He did poke his 2 fingers quite a lot inside my wallet (which was inside my jacket pocket), and yes he did stall quite a bit, but at no point did he hold the wallet in his hands or even look towards it (he never took his eyes off my eyes).
All of the items he read correctly at the first attempt and where as follows:
A Visa Debit card (quite a common wallet content - i admit), a leisure club card, Money - derren said that i had only £20 notes in my wallet which was correct.
A car park receipt (derren also got the amount on the receipt £5.60 spot on), a football fixture card (Derren named
both club sponsors on the front of the card), my business card (quite a common content again, i admit), but most impressive was the last bit. As you already stated yourself it was a photo of a family member (my niece age 4 in fancy dress), derren said it was a photo of a small girl in a costume. He then asked me to say in my mind what her name was, and he somehow plucked her name out at the first attempt (it is a very unusual name as well). I’ve got to say i was very impressed with his accuracy and how specific he was.
I am pretty certain that i wasn’t hypnotised, but i love the “advanced braille course theory”.
Heather: I don’t know how he managed to get the name “BROADSTAIRS” from the student in the pub scene, does anyone have any thoughts on how he done this ?
Ian: thankyou for sharing that. That is simply: amazing! I’m speechless over that!! Each day theres another reason i wish i went to the stage door to meet him!!!!
well well well lol sorry im enjoying this sight so much………
i just had to say where are the other appriciation sites???
if derren ever read this he might think im hawking him as my father said but im not the fact is i have so much to say about his work and how id love to complete what he does as there are no women comercial magicians are there??
so i tried two of derrens tricks on my step father this eve and he was very impressed
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
love kitty xx
Ian: THIS IS SATANISM. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say. How incredible… and how incredibly lucky you are. Thinking about it, you mentioned that:
The wallet was in your pocket always… - perhaps an argument against pick-pocketing
He poked around quite alot - was he gathingring infomration just by feel?
He stalled - time to do whatever secret technique he uses?
He was very specific - which effectively rules out any cold reading or ‘fishing’ techniques.
He ascertained facts that cannot be “felt” by touch (e.g. what the amount on the reciept was)
He could viualise the contents very well one way or another.
These facts all raise questions that give arguments for and against a whole host of arguments however likely or unlikely.
Then something odd… he tells you the name of your daughter. Ian, I’m suspicious that the Name was written somewhere in your wallet, or on the photo that you were carrying. I mean, if I dare make the assumption that Derren Brown is not the child of Satan, he has *somehow* literally seen the contents of your wallet, whether through pick-pocketing or some transmitter device (unlikely I know). If the name IS NOT in your wallet, I’m sacrificing my pet goldfish in his honour.
We’re all probably missing something vital that may have happened before he did the trick…
My brain is hurting.
btw… I know it’s unlikely, but apart from once being one of the best Ballroom dancers at his age level in England in his youth, he is also recognised as one of the greatest pickpockets around.
Ian, where was your wallet located? I know that you have to wait in queue for quite a while for Derren to come out (no pun intended) so are you SURE that no one could have sneaked a quick steal? Here are some words from Derren Brown’s Absolute Magic:
“The main issue as regards stealing an item for this type of effect is that the pick-pocketing is never revealed. Nobody should know that you even have the skill, unless you can clearly and convincingly separate these effects from any earlier steals you may have performed. In fact, you would like that one possible method (”he must have stolen my wallet, noted down all the contents, then put it back again before we started…”) to sound so ridiculous that it is simply dismissed”.
hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
Willbox, remember the effect where in Pure effect (or was it Absolute Magic) where he does a watchsteal and then causes the woman to “hallucinate”, i.e. convince her that she was hallucinating, in that she could see her own watch that she *thought* she left behind at home? This man is bold as anything.
Ian, really, try to think back. Jackets are notoriously easy to pickpocket from… It doesn’t necessarily mean that that is how he did it, though.
A key question is still whether the name was in the wallet or not…
i was sat behind the guy last nite in derby who had the chance of 5k. It certainly lookd like 5k in there, has anyone ever won it? Ps. Gr8 show! Well worth 20 quid
Jon its a trick box - whatever the person says, the box can be revealed to show the opposite (imagine a mirror going along diagonally in the box, with £500 on one side and £5000 on the other - all Derren has to do is subtely turn it round if need be). The flipchart has ‘Why does everyone choose £500′ and then an extra 0 is added if need be. Someone reported that the extra 0 fell off, so that when the flipchart was next used it said 500 rather than 5000. This is why there is no question mark after the number. People seemingly choose randomly, you’re made to believe that everyone chooses the same thing, but they don’t.
Crimson - yes that watch routine was a blast - shows just how flexible a magician is in taking advantage of the situation!
Just a quick query is Derren’s real name Derren Victor Brown? as Derren Victor means great conqueror????
x
Derren does the “money game” routine in one of his TV shows with notes inside envelopes. I have a suspicious that the envelopes have also been subtly doctored in some manner.
I want to raise a puzzle that was mentioned earlier somewhere above… When performing the ORACLE act, why does Derren ask people to write down their questions and facts. Obiviously so he can read it, but what does he say to the audience as his reason for why he needs the facts and questions WRITTEN when he’s apparently going to pick it up through other means. It’s puzzling that noone seemed to question the fact that he asked for things to be written.
Keen to hear what his justification was from anyone who has actually been to the show.
I found this website the other day and did not post a comment earlier as i decided that i like the blog so much that i wanted to read it all, and all i did read!!
I went to see the show in Bournemouth last friday and thought it was brilliant! I hadn’t seen any of his shows before so have nothing to compare it to except the TV shows. Just to add to some of the lines of conversation i have read:
When the curtains came down during the “fainting” i am pretty sure the it was the same curtain as at the beginning of the show and therefore the box must have been on show, althought i can’t claim that i actually looked! I do believe that the scroll must have been put in whilst on the table, not sure how but in some way it must have been. I am really not convinced with the computer paper or whatever because i think u can deffinatly see it is normal papere when it is dropped on the stage at the end.
The things such as someone stealing a printer and the teenagers card saying c**k, were brillinat additons and i have to admit i thought that they were unique to my show, although now i am completely aware that they were not, amusing none the less.
The thing that i am not sure about is the hypnosis of the woman who ‘guessed’ the cards? can anyone shed any light?
Also in some earlier comment people are making reference to DB guessing a word from a book am pretty sure that was not at our show at all, i don’t know if he has resently omitted it?
I have not quite worked at the point or indeed the process of the pendulum thing…
Have to admit hearing about the finger reading of Ian’s wallet sounds brilliant and i really can’t think how he does it. the brail idea is a good one but as someone has already pointed out you can’t read things with brail if they are not raised eg. who is in a photo. The £20 note thing i guess is something to do with the fact that all notes are different sizes but by just having your fingers in someones wallet would be difficult to get an idea of the size of a note.
Anyway i can’t think of anything else atm, but no doubt that i will post again if i think of anything else or wan to continue an existing chain of discussing.
Rozi
only posting this comment because i forgot to ticking the box about wanting updates via email, ooops!
Here is a quote from my post #133: - “Also - my observant girlfriend Lisa mentioned that she saw two matchbox shaped objects on Derrens thighs beneath his trousers - I didnt spot this and have no idea what she meant or where it relates to the show - but she is adamant about this. If anyone else is seeing the show - look out for this and clarify! She mentioned it to me after the table floating, but I didnt hear her properly and she clarified afterwards, by which time I couldnt see for myself.”
Here is a quote from Derren Browns Pure Effect (p118): - “I once owned a die that contained transmitter equipment, which would be used to inform me, via a vibrating pad strapped to my leg, of the number currently shown”.
The plot thickens! I wonder would he would be using the transmitter equipment for? Possibly ‘yes/no’ signals from a stagehand?
Hi Rozi - glad you enjoyed the show - pretty much concluded the box is a gimmick, as used in the German ‘Next Uri Geller’ show of which people have posted links. The pendulum thing is a way of finding highly-suggestibles to make the table spinning routine work - which I do think was an unnecessary filler and not in keeping with the shows theme (more seancey).
“I once owned a die that contained transmitter equipment, which would be used to inform me, via a vibrating pad strapped to my leg, of the number currently shown”
Does this somewhat vindicate my (derided at the time) earlier post here that he could have been receiving messages in Morse Code? Willbox, I can’t believe that your quote there exactly sums up my guess at how he was getting messages from backstage!
Andrew, it is certainly possible, but for the ORACLE routine the detail required means that there is an EASIER way to accomplish it, vis a vis earphones.
It is certainly possible that Morse code could be used in such a situation, but just think; if you were doing the effect, what method would you use? propably an earpiece (they can be skin coloured and shoved semi deep into the ear) or memoriesd in the intermission.
But in principle what you said is correct. Certainly possible. There are those who probably thought your method was a bit too high-tech. Not the case; it’s cumbersome but not unrealistic. It’s a good idea.
Also, can someone please answer my request above if you know the answer: how did derren justify the WRITING of the questions on the papers if he was supposedly going to pick it up pseudo-psychicly anyway??? Without a suitable justification I would have thought people would have started questioning the act of writing things in envelopes…
Crimson: as far as i can remember the only justification was that that was how it used to be done, reference to the oracle act in the past. Correct me if i’m wrong anyone.
The thing is, that out of the 1500ish people that were there, there was only 150 people who wrote on the cards, Derren conviniently failed to mention that there was more written on the card than just intials, seat and question eg. date of birth, full name and some random bit of info about urself. and also as far as i can make out from this blog, the answer to the question. Of course if the whole audience did know all of this then obviously the question would inevitably be ‘how did he see inside the envelope without opening it?’ as oppose to ‘how on earth did he know all the information about someone if they did write it down?!?!? :-O’
When he was asking everyone to write down the details on the envelopes, the audience didn’t even know what form the second half of the show would take, so there was little suspicion.
Later he said something like ‘writing down on the cards is just to focus your mind on the question.’ I assumed as well that it was written down so that he could if necessasry prove that he’d got the answer right.
“There are those who probably thought your method was a bit too high-tech. Not the case; it’s cumbersome but not unrealistic. It’s a good idea.”
Well he’s actually confirmed that he HAS such a device. I don’t see why you couldn’t make one smaller than a matchbox - thimble-sized in fact.
You’re right andrew he did say about focusing your mind on the question and i also remember thinking that the cards would be used to prove his answer right.
I do think the ‘vibrating pad’ or whatever it is, is a good idea in theory but i think that it would still be very difficult to achieve, although it would explain the amount of times when he would stall on someones name saying something like ‘it begins with an L… Louise, Lucy?’.
I agree with what someone said earlier in the blog about an assistant getting the cards and him remembering the information, tricky but very achievable if you train urself in remembering lists of information.
The ear piece idea is also good but he did get someone to check he wasn’t wearing one and if he was then it would have had to have been very very small or really far in.
“…but i think that it would still be very difficult to achieve”
Why? I can’t imagine a simpler piece of technology! All it needs to do is buzz. And he’s already admitted he has such a device!
Its not the technology i think that would be difficult to achieve, of course a box which only function is to buzz is rediculusly simple. its the fact that, as someone said before, decifering all the information immediatly on stage would surely be difficult.
Please don’t think that i am dense enough to think that learning morse code is impossible because obviously in the past it was the only form communication between ships etc.
I guess it would be easy to do with enough practice and would deffinatly be a plausible explanation to the oracle act.
Apologies for ever doubting you!!
No worries. Learning Morse Code is not that difficult. Once you know it, you’re not ‘decifering’ the morse code, any more than you are decifering these letters that make up my post. You just hear it, or feel it, as words.
And as you say, he has plenty of opportunity to stall, and at any rate often makes guesses from just the first few letters anyway. If the guess is wrong, he is able to guess again, this time having had the time to get more of the letters from offstage. Or perhaps he knows the whole name right from the start, and just guesses wrongly a couple of times to make it sound better.
In his book, Derren describes the technique he uses to remember long lists of numbers or words. It involves subsituting numbers for letters, which you then connect into words. The system he claims to use is at least as complicated as learning Morse Code, so I’m sure he could manage it.
Also in the book Derren explains how important it is to make ‘wrong’ guesses, or near misses, occasionally. He also describes exactly the technique of offering up bits of information and saying to the audience ‘What does that mean?’ and allowing them to fill in the gaps. He uses this at the end of the show with the recurring word on the scroll. “What’s the thimble about?” and the audience ‘reminds’ him about it.
I think i might have to read his book, it sounds quite good. I know it sounds stupid but a lot of the time what he does kinda freaks me out a little: i don’t like the idea that someone should be able to MAKE someone else do something or say something. Obviously i know that with the oracle act this doesn’t apply its more the other things which he has done in the past. But like someone said before that Derren tells this guy that he lives with his girlfriend and that the only way he could have known that information was because he booked his tickets with her card (or something of that sort) it just makes you think about how much you can find out about people on the web! Although actually, thinking about it, if there is an assistant back stage they probably bring up the booking information on a computer when Derren is making his ‘predictions’ and feed that to him to amaze everyone.
I would like to know how this was done…
during the oracle act derren was attempting to ‘guess’ a womans cat but a different name kept coming into her head, and he asked her (i cant remember exactly what the name was, so lets say joe just for the sake of it) “the cats not called joe is it?” “no” “well who’s joe? is joe your boyfriend, get joe out of your mind and just focus on your cats name, whos joe?” she replied rather shocked and embarrassed and stated that ‘joe’ is her ex-boyfriend. Her voice expression suggested she was with her present boyfriend as she sounded flustered when stating it was her ex.
I’d like to know if this happened at any other show, derren saying it was an ex partner??
and how was this done?!!?!? any ideas?
my first idea was that perhaps she wrote down on the paper the bit of general info about herself “my ex boyfriend was called joe” but out of all the general info you could think of why choose that? i think somethin more trivial such as her mothers maiden name, or her job occupation etc would have been stated rather than an ex boyfriends name! especially if im right in thinking she was with her present boyfriend whilst at the show.
Not being there, I couldn’t say exactly, Strawberries. But it sounds exactly the same technique that spiritualists use. They cast out a name, see what they can fish in. Derren (again) discusses it at length in his book - it’s called Cold Reading.
So I’m trying to guess your cat’s name. And I say Joe. I might be VERY lucky and get it first time. Or it might be close but not quite right (Your cat’s name is Josey, or Joanna, or Jonathan, or Jon). If it’s nowhere close I say “Why do you keep thinking that name then? Is it a boyfriend?” You might then say “No but my Dad is called Joe”, or Jonathan, or Jon. Or it might be your brother, or your SISTER’s girlfriend. Or your sister’s cat. Or son. Any of these results would have seemed impressive. Or in this case, the woman’s EX-boyfriend. And perhaps Joe wasn’t exactly his name, but she said yes as it was close enough.
Remember that DB didn’t even guess that it was an ex-boyfriend. He just asked her who it was. She filled in the information. I know you said Joe wasn’t the actual name, but I bet it was a common name nonetheless. Everyone knows a Dave, or a Paul, or some variation on Joe.
I caught the show last night in Derby, and was in the front row so did have the advantage of a close view. Got to say I was very impressed, and very entertained.
I like a lot of the theories presented so far, but actually came up with one of my own regarding the phonecall and £10 serial number trick. Why did the call recipient have to be a male? And why use that Bluetooth speaker device (the phone could just as easily have been set to speakerphone and held to the mike). I guessed that the “box” was playing back the numbers at the right moments, cutting out the man on the phone. That would explain why the numbers were asked for one at a time, and not simply as “tell me your three numbers”. I reckon that 90% of males would sound fairly similar when saying just a single digit, particularly on a mobile, through a bluetooth device through a theatre PA. The only time you’d fall foul is if the guy had a strong dialect, and the caller on stage might be suspicious. Or am I really over-complicating things here???
The name of my niece was not in my wallet. You’ve got me thinking on the pickpocket, but im pretty certain i never came into close contact with anyone that evening (my wallet was in my jacket inside pocket) - i agree that this would explain everything apart from him getting my nieces name (Kasie). But Derren was definately nowhere near me until after the show, of that i’m certain.
PJP your theory is far more risky and unnecessary than just printing it offstage! Someone who had one confirmed that the serial number was thinner - and a scan shows that the I of I WILL MAKE HIM PICK covers the other serial number which is obviously different, so this is DEFINATELY how its done. Its certainly fun thinking of different ways though!
Ian - inside jacket pocket is a classic place to get pickpocketed - I find this really perplexing though because I totally understand that it seems utterly ‘unlikely’ being that Derren wouldnt have risked such a ploy at this stage of his career. But like he says in Pure Effect, its the only way. Unless he has little cameras under his fingers, and his ‘friends’ feed the information back via his special leg vibrators.
Ian: did you go to the bar or buy anything in the venue at any point before your communication with Derren?
I can picture a DB associate standing beside you noticing the wallet full of twenty’s and listening to your conversation where you may have mentioned your daughter?
Far fetched I know but thought i’d ask lol
Im already hoping DB brings a new tour to Glasgow next year, the two Ive seen so far have been brilliant and like this thread proves generates so many after-thoughts. Is really great stuff :o)
Hi all,
The Oracle trick was possibly one of the easiest tricks for the whole night. I saw the show in Poole, and was amazed at the simplicity.
Without giving the answer away, let me ask 3 questions:
1. Why were we made to go up on to the stage one person at a time?
2. Why was the bowl set at the back of the stage?
3. Why were we asked to mix the cards up if we felt like it?
The answer to these questions shows you exactly how the trick worked.
The format of the card was: Name, Date of birth, question you wanted answered, and (on the reverse) fact about yourself.
Although Derren says that he will answer questions specifically, he doesn’t. He will state the fact about yourself, but any question asked is a chosen vague one (in Poole it was “will I do well in the future” or “is my boyfriend cheating on me”) so no specific answer is ever given (e.g. what is the name of my cat?) He might appear to do so, because this information might be given in the “fact about yourself” section, but the majority of the audience do not know this.
So it’s obvious that Derren can see the cards he needs to see (and only certain ones will work), so it’s a question of answering my 3 questions above to work out how.
All the best,
James
P.S. If anybody wants to know how the rest was done, just shout!
“P.S. If anybody wants to know how the rest was done, just shout!” … or read the rest of this blog?
Jimbo we already discussed everything you said! What is your take on how the banner is put in the box? And how did the table float?
Hi WillBox,
Me bad for not reading the entire blog but only starting just before the date I went in Poole (I’ve read it all now).
The banner is undoubtedly done in one of two ways. The box IS in full view the whole time, but was opened on a table brought on from offstage. Either DB switched the roll or it was loaded in a gimmick in the table. Either way, the box was opened facing upstage and not to the audience, so the only person who could see inside the box was the audience member onstage (conveniently positioned downstage of the box).
It doesn’t really matter which method was used, they are both feasible, and all the talk of printable paper (with an aerial in the cable????) is silly really, when it might not work, and the other two methods are virtually foolproof.
For the table, I would suggest Losander which was mentioned previously and immediately struck me as the best way to work this.
All the best
Jimbo
Well, it’s been more or less guessed at - the theory on the Uri Geller Box Prediction thing is that the scroll is written offstage when all the info is known, and placed in the table leg. The box is put on the table in a special way - if you look at the German video at about 7:40, you can see he places the box jutting forward on the table, then slides it carefully back - it seems to click into place. This activates a compressed air mechanism which shoots the scroll up into the box and into the tube. As the tube is taken out, he gives it a funny twist - this is placing the cap on the bottom of the tube, making it looked sealed.
This is just the theory that was going around - seems plausible to me.
From what I read here, DB’s box may be more like the American one - transparent plastic - but on the video you see the lid is opened towards the audience, covering the tube from sight. The guy reaches in with both hands I believe (don’t have acces to the vid to check), and there’s a lot more fumbling around inside the box, so the actual mechanism might be somewhat different.
That business with the card with personal information sounds like a classic dual-reality thing - the specific person thinks DB’s guessing the personal info (knowing it has nothing to do with the question they wrote), while the rest of the audience thinks he’s answering the special question …
I saw Derren Brown’s show in Tunbridge Wells last night, having read these blog comments beforehand so I had a good idea of what to look out for. To answer Keith’s comment first, DB’s box is opaque, with a wooden texture. Interestingly, the “Most Psychic Woman” tried standing too close to the box at first after he’d opened it, and Derren led her away from it before he would remove the tube with the banner. This suggests that he has to do something in the box to release the banner tube.
Also, the seven of hearts card trick almost failed. The woman guessing the cards got confused and failed to pick it, so Derren had to do an extra card force on her (the same as used with the audience members) to pick 7H.
The £10 note trick also went a bit awry. The first volunteer’s friend on the phone only gave two digits (0 0) before saying “just give him the £10 Derren” or similar and putting the phone down. Derren went to a second volunteer and got them to call a friend and get four digits to fill out the six beyond the three he’d predicted at first. The serial number part, of course, still worked.
There was no book volunteer and no torch. The objects where DB got info were a policeman’s badge and a woman’s ring. For the badge, he insisted that the man hold his police ID card and concentrate on the name written on it, but made a point of telling him to hold the microphone very close to his mouth, and the card very close to his chest so that nobody else would see the details. This meant the mic was essentially sandwiched between the man’s chest and the card, and as well as getting the name, he also identified the date on it, which suggests there was a small camera on the microphone. The woman with the ring and the policeman were both close together on the left side of the front stalls.
The card saying “cock” and the stolen printer both turned up, although interestingly someone in the audience did volunteer as the man who stole the printer. Again, Derren suggested someone called Jack or Jacqui had seen the theft.
During the Oracle act, I’m sure I could see those two matchbox-sized boxes on Derren’s legs. I was on the right side of the front stalls, and when Derren turned to address the left side of the audience, his trousers in silhouette did show a rectangular bulge on each thigh (trying not to sound suggestive here!). It’s quite possible this is how he receives info about the objects in the audience (i.e. it’s not him who sees the output of the camera, but someone backstage who signals to him).
Some interesting points, not really related to the show. Two volunteers turned out to be policemen. Both of the phone volunteers’ friends were football fans who supported Tottenham. (This led to Derren being able to cover the fact that he was continuing with the same initial 3-digit prediction, which he’d claimed earlier was specific to the first volunteer.) And when the banner was revealed, the woman who’d been sent back to her seat actually screamed out when her object appeared on the paper!
Oh, interestingly I noticed the man with the cap who’d fiddled with the bowl of cards also emerged outside the front of the theatre just as everyone was leaving. He was carrying a plastic carrier-bag and appeared to be watching people leaving. Might this be at all relevant to the wallet mystery?
I have to say I found it enormously entertaining watching the show knowing in advance what was happening. I was extremely impressed with Derren’s showmanship, especially his skill at covering up the parts which didn’t quite go according to plan!
Thanks for that post Darren - was really interesting reading it. It was good you read all this beforehand, I suppose it was as entertaining but in a slightly different way!
Great posts everyone. Between you all you have figured out about 80% of the show.
1) You are correct when you say a fake member of the public goes up during the break and takes cards out of the bowl for Derren.
2) You are correct in saying the £10 is printed for Derren and stuck to the back of the drawing board for Derren to palm and bring bak in to play.
3) You are wrong in thinking a camera is used to see what the people are drawing at the back of the stage. Good guess but it is much cleverer than that.
4) When the lady guesses 3 different playing cards, all that matters is the first card she said. All 3 members of the crowd where forced the same card. So you guys got that one right as well.
5) Also no one has guessed when the scroll is switched. Plenty of you have guessed when he faints and you are wrong.
If you want to know then read on ………………………
When the box is lowered Derren puts a table underneth it for it to rest on. The table leg breaks as misdirection and a stage hand runs out to hold the table steady. That is where the switch happens and then the stage hand walks back off while Derren himself drags the table with box on it to rest it at the back of the stage.
Can’t believe 238 posts and no one noticed !!! lol
Hi Reading boy, thanks for the confirmation on some of the theories. The reason i didn’t mention about the table leg breaking is because, at my show at least, it didn’t happen! so i dunno if it just happened at yours puely because of an accident…?
Hi Reading Boy,
I agree with most of what you said, but for no. 3, I had an envelope for no. 1, and so was allowed to go on stage, so I could look up into the ceiling above where the paper was written on, and if what I saw was not a camera I’m a Dutchman. Why make a trick more complicated than necessary?
Also, the scroll switching is not a problem. We had no broken leg in Poole, but a “loaded” part of the table (which didn’t have to be a leg but it is a convenient shape isn’t it? )
After all, the table was brought on just before the box was lowered. To load the scroll in any part of the table and then appear in the tube should be childsplay to anybody worth their salt.
Jimbo
Just suppose for a moment that none of it was trickery.
Has anyone considered for a minute that Derren might be the devil?
In which case his greatest trick would be making us believe he’s trying to trick us?
Back to the floating table…
Would anyone care to divulge how the Losander table works then?
The Oracle trick was possibly one of the easiest tricks for the whole night. I saw the show in Poole, and was amazed at the simplicity.
Without giving the answer away, let me ask 3 questions:
1. Why were we made to go up on to the stage one person at a time?
2. Why was the bowl set at the back of the stage?
3. Why were we asked to mix the cards up if we felt like it?
I AM SHOUTING. I really want to know how it was done. My email address is greatbarr1@googlemail.com
You can buy the table from http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=7758
You can buy the table from http://www.magicbox.uk.com/shop.php/shop/magic-tricks/children-39-s-and-cabaret/losander-floating-table/p_857.html
Jimbo can you tell me how the trick work please? You can buy the table from http://www.magicbox.uk.com/shop.php/shop/magic-tricks/children-39-s-and-cabaret/losander-floating-table/p_857.html
I see that the great man( I mean it) has given an interview about coming out .. about time he spilled
the beans on the psycho babble he claims to use.
It would be interesting to hear his explanation of the psychology of being gay and the evolutionary implications (start a thread)
Evolutionary implications of being gay?
Siblings of homosexuals tend to have more children than the national average. So it looks like biology has that angle covered already.
The implication of him as an individual. Magician beget Magician.(in his case not)
In your answer you are part way there,
in the natural circumstances a mother would have lots of children, a gay son would be a vital help
in bringing up the other children, the evolutionary advantage is therefore to the mother.
It’s the dominant mother passive- or absent father syndrome Derren seems to have quite a mother
bond.
“It’s the dominant mother passive- or absent father syndrome”
You reckon this can change someone’s sexuality?
Hi Andrew, after observing several cases over the last 25 years, it is form not change-
it is not straightforward .
Case 1 - Beautiful dominant woman, very passive husband. In earlier times she would have had
lots of children but in these times she had one son who became a clone of her - high camp.
She should have had more children esp females who would have carried the beautiful genes on. The camp son would have been useful to the mother, although a evolutionary dead end in himself.
If you have any better theories please expound.
Hmm. Derren’s not camp at all. And evidence points towards gayness being genetic. Single case anecdotes don’t help much in theories, especially when they buck the trend.
At the end of the day he still takes it up the shitter.
Not all gay men practice anal sex. And many straight couples do.
I’m not sure why the conversation took this turn, but I’m watching closely. This is my personal site, not a forum, and I’ll close the comments if they get invaded by homophobic trolls.
Saw him at Wolverhampton on the 19th and enjoyed the show immensely. Having read his book and watched all of his TV stuff, I went in there convinced I’d be able to spot most of his misdirections and sleights of hand. Did I heck, though and by the end of the show he’d got me trying to “mentally project” my cat’s name at him from the Dress Circle. And there was me thinking I was a man of science! Great showmanship. Twenty quid well spent.
I can’t believe so many people have nicked printers from work though..
“I’m not sure why the conversation took this turn, but I’m watching closely. This is my personal site, not a forum, and I’ll close the comments if they get invaded by homophobic trolls.”
So much for free speech, apparently we can only post comments that Andrew approves.
You don’t need to point out it’s your site we are well aware of that.
You sound like a small child that takes his football away if he doesn’t get his own way.
I can hardly be accused of being a homophobic when I’m bisexual myself.
I have always been a fan of Derren’s hence me being here.
My comments were flippant and throw away something which I feel has gone over your head.
What you INTEND really has nothing to do with it, its how it comes across that matters.
Now stop being so sensitive and put your handbag back down.
“So much for free speech”
If you start swearing in a stranger’s house, you may be asked to leave. It’s his site. And free speech doesn’t mean that no-one will take offence at anything you say.
Watched the show in Blackpool last night and it was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!!
Have always been a fan and tried to watch out for his tells and convincers to make us all think the same thing but couldn’t spot a thing, the man is a genius!!
I was chosen to go go on stage for 20 questions, wrote down SOOTY (why, I have absolutely no idea!!). Was amazed when he guessed after only 1 question, but felt a chill when, on opening the scroll, a picture of sooty had been drawn!!
I have obviously since, read the whole of this blog and now understand the theory behind the “mind reading” but am still in awe!
Am now in love with the man and was gutted to find out in this blog where his preferences lay.
Forgot to mention about the table tennis playing. Did anybody spot the gorillas playing? I cant say I saw them persay but what I saw whilst counting the white balls was the 2 black players coming more fore front of the screen, I actually thought that 2 guys would be physically coming out of the screen and playing table tennis on the stage. Did any body else get this wierd feeling or am I just a bit odd??
I was in Blackpool the other night too. I saw the sharply-dressed chap stealing the envelopes from the bowl for the ‘Oracle’ act. It looked like he was scooping them into a bag/his trousers or something! I was tempted to follow him out and confront him (for a laugh) but there were too many people sitting either side of me.
With the ‘Mind Reading Woman’ bit, Derren was trying to force 7H on her from the start, but she went for 6S, 8H, then he used the short card (or whatever it is) to get her to cut to the 7H. Funnily, in a supposed ‘free choice’, why would he say ‘a number between 1 and 9, not 3′?! No-one notices these things though I suppose.
The 7H force went something like this:
“If you had to choose a colour, red or black, which one would you choose?” (including slightly biased hand gestues.
She said black, then went on to get 6S.
“What is going to be your other colour for the next card?” (obviously red is the ‘other’ colour)
“Red”
“What’s your favourite suit, hearts or diamonds?” (slight emphasis on H, also moves hand over heart)
“Hearts”
“OK. If you had to pick a card it would be the ssss, um the ssss-something of hearts, what would it be?” (trying to lead her with the S)
“Eight”
Obviously that didn’t work so he went with the dodgy deck of cards.
Another thing I noticed was in the 20 questions game. When he had peeled off a couple of the people’s numbers (1-6) he looked at what he had peeled off like he was reading it for a second, then went “Err, OK” quickly and carried on. I was wondering if somehow the answers were written on there and he was thrown by one strange one - perhaps SOOTY?
The second gorilla swap was ace. I knew it was going to happen and still didn’t spot it. It really was slick.
One of the funniest things of the evening was listening the daft couple behind us talking during the interval about how this or that “has to be a fix” and how “these people don’t realise it’s a fix”. They were saying that the phone call was fixed, which is just ridiculous.
Regarding the cash in the box, I thought maybe the ‘clipped together’ cash could be unclipped when he takes the sheet off, by twisting/pulling/nudging something, or left intact if he wants. The £500 could be £5000 clipped to look like £500, as no-one would be able to tell without getting inside the box.
I think I’m pretty much done.
Nice notes, Sarah and Tom. I love how you remembered the ‘forcing’ of 7H to such detail. A new contribution to the techniques too - the possibility that the stickers he sticks on them are actually the answers - perhaps on the backing plastic which he reads? Someone off stage could have easily written on them - I cant remember if he has the stickers from the start or if someone hands them to him. Sarah, I really do think hes giving himself away by guessing Sooty with one question! When I saw the show last year, there were lots more questions and it felt a lot more like he was genuinely doing something clever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBL2SbRj5CA
shows a similar example to the table-tennis gorillas. Because I had seen this I saw the gorillas as I knew exactly what they were doing when trying to get us to concentrate on something so specifically.
Also, when it said “Men are usually better at this than women” that is just appealing to everyone to concentrate harder on the ball to try and ‘beat’ the opposite sex.
Still quite clever though.
Dear all,
I have read all this through this blog too and was at the Blackpool show on Thursday. My 2nd time as I saw him in Sheffield last year. Although I was expecting some of the stuff, I will still amazed. Have people now rejected the theory that the box is opened while the curtain comes down? At the start of the show, the curtain at the back is down (with Derren’s face on it) and the box clearly visible. After he ‘faints’, the curtain that drops is nearer the front of the stage - although isn’t the very front one (the safety curtain, which does appear at the very very end)
Did anyone notice in Blackpool that he slipped one of the cards during the Oracle act into his inside pocket and laughed? What was this for?
The numbers addiong up to the date amazes me, but I think that is probably fixed. He doesn’t actually start to pass a piece of paper back, or give a sheet to anybody. Someone could just have one in their pocket and shout out the date, could they not (in Blackpool, someone started to shout the number out before he guessed it - has that happened before?)
I actually missed the start of the Sheffield show through getting lost, but I knew the gorillas were going to appear - there’s a famous clip of a group playing basketball (or at least throwing a ball to each other), and this was actually used during an A-Level Psychology class at a school where I used to work. Derren switching into the gorilla outfit is amazingly quick, and very very good.
Great blog, folks - keep up the work, and thanks to the owner.
Hi I am too a big fan and enjoyed Derren’s show in Dartford in March. Fantastic night; I was the one chosen to unscroll the scroll… After spending much time reading this site, I am still confused as to exactly when the scroll was switched over … but the paper (which I got to keep) did smell strongly of marker pen which made it pretty obvious it had just been written! By total co-incidence, I auditioned for his TV shows last year and thought I would tell those of you who do not yet know, that his new Trick or Treat series begins on 2nd May on Channel 4 (for 6 weeks). Enjoy!
The answers aren’t written on the back of the stickers.
The first 2 stickers he placed were on blokes, he just slapped the stickers on their chests, the 3rd sticker was for a woman, at this point he paused for a second (possibly for comic effect) and wondered how to stick the sticker to her chest, he decided to just unstick the stickers and allow us ladies (HA HA) to stick our own chests.
I think the passing of the backing sheets backstage and being slipped the answers seems more plausible.
Thanks Andrew, for letting us chat in your back bedroom (as it were)
I’ve been a fan of Derren’s for years (and guessed his sexual preferences as it happens, not that it is any of my business) but I’m seeing him live for the first time in June. Managed to get seats in the 5th row, far right on a night it is being filmed - I’m very tempted to wear easy to remember clothing in order to be chosen!
Part of me wishes I hadn’t read all of the above, but it was too tempting, like trying to peek at your Christmas presents when you were a kid. Still, it’s the fact that Derren Brown is very good at what he does that made me want to see the show - not the fact he might actually be a warlock (as suggested in Heat magazine).
BTW Ian, it is possible he was cold reading you. Guesswork and carefully watching your face could account for what his fingers “read” in your wallet. I used to date an NLP practitioner who could guess what card I was holding every time after asking me to picture it. And it wasn’t a magic trick, it was reading micro-signals.
Sundae Girl, thats a great idea, wear a distinct top that you can remove without being naked. Then, if you get picked, after saying your number, change your clothing! That would be great.
Reading this blog wont change your appreciation for the show - in some ways it might make it more interesting - particularly hearing other peoples perceptions and beliefs during the break (or muttering behind you). Its also funny watching Derren acting as if he is surprised, or as if he is making a mistake (when really he knows he isnt). In some ways (and I think about this whenever seeing him live), he must feel rotten inside knowing he is lying through his teeth and that what he makes himself out to be is really just a mirage. He must think “if people knew the real me…”. Perhaps thats why his last special was more cerebral and less illusioney?
(Illusioney is probably not a real word but so what)
Hi sundae girl, im not that clued up on micro-signals, and ive no idea wether derren is skilled in this field (but i have a feeling he will be). If the person you used to date could read what card you where thinking of (and it wasn’t a magic trick), then presumably he could read other things you may be thinking of like numbers or words. This may also explain how derren managed to get the word “BROADSTAIRS” from the student in the pub scene (Heather - this may be the answer you’ve been looking for !!!). I’d be very interested to hear if anyone else knows about micro-signals, or how they can be read.
sarah,
I didn’t mean when he paused before not sticking the girls stickers on, it was a few seconds before then. I think after the first one was pulled off actually. Also, he didn’t pass the sheets backstage, but put them on one of his many tables at the back of the stage.
I just can’t get enough of this blog- coming back for more updates on peoples views etc etc.
Anyone watch the trick or treat show last night?
Why can’t we all be taught that? Would have been great for my A levels last year!!!!
saw derren last night at garrick thearte london… box with ’scroll’ in was at the top of the stage even when he fainted so it must must be handed it when he ‘faints’ then uses his slide of hand to make out its from the box. with the money in a box , the only time this disappers is when he does ‘faint’ and by this time the guy has already chosen his amount choice twice so highly unlikely that he is going to change it right at the end. apart from that all over the other tricks have been pretty well theoried.
darkside, derren isnt passed the scroll when he faints, its just a gimmicked table. The table, with the box, is a gimmicked magicians ‘toy’. The box contains a mechanism so that when the box is put on top of it, the tube shoots up inside. In a way you could deduce this by asking “why would he use a strange plasticy looking box”, “why would he bring out a special table to put it on, that is more than just a flat surface, instead of dangling it to waist height and opening it?” and “why would the scroll be in a tube (the sort that supermarkets use to whizz their notes around) rather than rolled up and tied?”.
oh i see, still confused about how he manages to work out whats it peoples pockets though? the ushers with the microphones were very biast towards the man he gave the microphone 2 though? still havnt gatherd how he worked it out ? any ideas
The running theory on the book read is that he uses a torch with a built in camera. (the ushers give the audience member the torch and ask them to point it at the page). I know cameras in torchs sounds a little far-fetched at first but it really isnt, such things are widely available and provide an obvious means of getting information. Then its just a matter of something feeding it through to his headpiece (which he still has on at this point as its just before the oracle act he takes it off).
Hi everyone!
Then on top of all that she said everything but 7 to the three audience members even after Derren gave her another go (that was when I strongly started to suspect she had seen the show before) so he finally had her cut the deck at 7H just as it was in the 264th post.
I’ve seen several shows and been reading this blog since it started, and I’m more than happy it did!
I was in Garrick Tuesday and the shows I am amazed the most about were the first one (Dorking last year) and the last one - in the first one I absolutely had no idea what to expect, was thrown from one shock to the other, and as I’m learning it’s always the currently last one I know the most about, and knowing how it all supposed to go allows me to see how he handles situations not going according to plan!
One question about the table tennis. From the second show onwards I returned to trying to count the passes instead of looking out for the gorillas. I count how many times the arm of the white player on the right moves. I keep getting 27, that’s 54 passes of which I should take one off as the footage ends with the ball being on the left and that’s 4 less than it should be - anyone to confirm/correct?
Finally I could see the banana first going of which I always forgot about before, even when I expected it. It happened as it was described in the 55th post and it was so quick that even if someone shouted out as soon as it moved, it would still be gone by the time the audience looked so they’d just think they missed the gorilla. I think I only could see it so clearly, because, unlike at the previous shows, this time they didn’t turn the lights off around it. It goes just after Derren does the 20 questions game with three people at once, which is fair enough as seconds later the cameraman who comes up for the last player would cover it.
He had a lot of difficulties with the card force tricks and he sorted them all out fine. First when the girl was to stop at the 8th card she apparently noticed that she was about to be forced and she insisted on her own choice instead of letting Derren’s one through which was quite interesting to watch - I’ve never seen this happened before. So Derren said he accidentally saw her card and got her to pick another (this time of course the right) one. Then the guy said Ace instead of 3 so Derren asked someone else who mercifully said 3D
One of these three people was sitting in front of me so looking over his shoulder I could see the cards in the deck he was to pick from were indeed different but the cut happened so quick that I’m not sure now if Derren did it stopping when the guy said “now” or he was allowed to handle the deck. Anyone remembers better? When he walked up to the second person I stretched my neck out like a giraffe but of course he made sure to get people far enough from each other
I read about the possibility of the mirror in the money box - Derren let go of the bottom corners of the box putting it down on the table a second after the spec announced his final choice.
At the floating table, to my greatest surprise, he clearly mentions Losander’s name but he talks so fast that I can’t catch the context. Anyone could?
He may get the name of the second name box (the one put on the floating table) off the gramophone - he walks up to it to turn it on just after the piece of paper with the name on is put in the box.
About the oracle act - at the interval when I was back entering the stalls, I nearly literally bumped into a guy who I’m sure took envelopes out of the bowl. He spent quite a few seconds in front of it but wasn’t mixing them - it looked like he was sorting his pockets out reaching in his trousers. He was thin, in grey, had short black hair and glasses with a thicker sort of frame. His outfit made me wonder if he was the guy behind the flip chart at the gorilla switch who I think was a little bit thinner than Derren and actually has never been seen properly apart from limbs, especially thinking that Derren may not want to involve any more people in his tricks than absolutely necessary. I followed him and he left the stalls throughout an exit to a ladies toilet, going upstairs as if chased, nearly running. I kept a corner between us so as not to let him to see me and when I took the last turn at the top of the stairs he was nowhere but there was a big white writing on the wall saying “STAGE DOOR” :))
By now I am pretty sure the pre-read envelopes get in underneath one of the white rolls that are on a table before the oracle act starts. He picks one up in each hand, stands on the left of the table with the bowl on and he puts the roll in his right hand to the left of the bowl. That’s the one that goes on his head later on. The one in his left hand has no official purpose I am aware of, and that was what made me suspicious. Walking to the right side of the table, he takes envelopes out of the bowl with his right hand as walking past. As he stops on the right of the table, facing the audience explaining, for a moment he puts his hands together underneath the roll, peeling the envelopes off from the bottom of it with his right hand then he puts the roll from his left hand in front of the bowl. Finally he throws all the envelopes away from the top which he took from the bowl. Nice slick move and so quick I am struggling to remember and I’m not at all sure of what I just wrote. Anyone observing please correct / confirm but I swear blind that in Southampton, when he was already ill, he forgot to take envelopes out of the bowl and they just seemed to appear in his hand after he handled the rolls.
Another little thing - it’s okay that there’s nothing in his ear after he removes his mike but that white band goes all over his ears just after, while it would be enough to cover his eyes…
At the end why does he say “that’s how they finish their _ACT_”? Sounds like he plain admits the use of stooges! Or what are the odds of having the same type of questions (life decision, tattoo…) each show?
By the way, there was a lady really worried about him when he fainted - she stood up saying he needed water. That and the fact that the water Derren asks to be brought on stage is already there on a table really tempted me to get up and give it to him… if they want to make it look like he genuinely needs it then I shouldn’t be stopped, should I!
WOW thanks Rita, great of you to write such a nice account and so detailed. Great observations on the bandages. You deserve some sort of a prize - maybe a piece of string with a nut on the bottom…
willbox.blogspot.com
Hi everyone.
I went to see the show bank holiday monday at the garrick theatre and me and the wife were absolutely blown away by Derrens performance. In fact i was so amazed that i came on the internet absolutley bursting to know how he did some of the tricks and thats how i came across this blog and all these answers.
I must say now i know how a lot of it is done it takes away the misticism(sp) of the show but i would still say its the best show ive seen and would reccomend it to anyone.
Now scanning through this site i havent seen the answer to how he does the part of the oracle routine that doesnt involve envelopes - where he just starts picking people out and telling them amazing things about them?
At the show i was at he correctly guessed a man had quadruplets in his family and his correct full name and profession - this is just one example, and he guessed another guy was wearing superman pants.
How does he know about audience members who didnt fill in any envelopes and who he cant actually see because of the darkness looking out from stage?
Regards spoonman
LOL willbox you nutter
thank you and it’s good to know I wasn’t far from the truth 
up until Tuesday I thought didn’t have much to add to this blog and now I just noticed I created the longest one! :-O
Spoonman, my tuppence on the oracle act:
1. I think after he asks to send thoughts he simply stops looking at envelopes to make you think the information wasn’t out of them and the people picked are too happy to be involved to reveal they had one.
2. He also does what he called ridiculous a couple of minutes before he starts the oracle act: fires off information ands waits it to be owned up.
WILLBOX: just been nosying at ur blog! Well i’d never know! Was looking at the shaun the sheep bit… your friends mum- newton abbot- im from near there! small world!
Ha lol did you listen to the dog people clip? Get in touch, my emails on the page, would be nice having a local derren fan-friend
I agree with Spoonman. I went to see Derren at the Garrick Theatre last night (13/5/08) and I would like to know how he knew certain facts during the oracle routine. Surely the people who were identified couldn’t have written these questions on the cards as it would be obvious to them that he had somehow read the cards? For example he knew that one woman was pregnant and that her first pet was called sid. He also knew that a guy’s grandmother’s middle name was Nesta. If these individuals had written this information down on cards then the other theories mentioned on this blog add up. If they did not then how can this be explained?
Kaz, I assure you that the trivia has been written on the cards. Its a case of ‘dual reality’ - to rest of the audience (who dont even know that the cards ask for trivia) it looks like mindreading - to the people who wrote on the cards, it looks (at best) like he is guessing what they had written. But we know that he has already memorised a bunch of info from the cards (which in my mind, is the genuinely clever bit, getting it all right). When I first saw the show, one thing that stuck with me was how unsuprised the people seemed compared to how I’d have thought they would be. E.g. If I hadnt written on a card, and Derren started coming out with loads of info about me, I’d want to shout out “Whhhhaaat?!! How the hell did you know that? Whats going on?” But everyone seems pretty calm (impressed, but calm). An interesting thing happened at my show where he said “a woman in her early thirties, with a cat, name beginning with L”. I was with a girl called Lisa, who matched this, but I know she hadnt filled out a card. He then said “a Lisa with a cat”. Of course at this point Lisa put her hand up - much to my utter confusion as I knew that Derren couldnt possibly know anything about her. And he didnt! He had the wrong person - which he knew instantly when asking her if she was a gemini (gathered from writing the birth date on the card).
Hi all,
As I’ve said before and has been explained before, the Oracle routine was simply reciting cards which had been seen. It’s a while since I saw the show in Poole, so I can’t recall the exact questions on the cards, but from my previous post they were : Name, Date of birth, question you wanted answered, and (on the reverse) fact about yourself.
As you can see Kaz, all the answers can be explained by these. You don’t need to know where somebody is sitting, because if you have such concrete facts, the person is almost certain to own up. If they don’t, you move on to the next one.
And if you’ve read the rest of this blog you’ll find there are certain predictions made every night which always come true.
So we have a mix of knowing what is already there and some events which are likely to happen anyway.
Enough said.
Jimbo
Go Kazza Go Kazza!!! Derren IS God!!! Yeah!!!
Hi all, Went to see the show last night and it was great to have read the blog beforehand.
Something weird happened at the end that I haven’t seen mentioned, and I wondered if it happened anywhere else, cos it was dramatically effective but inexplicable. Earlier on when 6 people had gone up on stage to write down an object, he went to No. 6, looked her over, and said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t use you’ and sent her down again. When the banner was unrolled, the word ‘monkey’ kept coming up, which appeared to connect to nothing, except it was the word that No. 6 had chosen and hadn’t been used. Fair enough, but by this time she was slumped in the audience, in a deep sleep (hypnotic trance?) and couldn’t be roused. All her friends had to shout out the information for her. Derren seemed pretty bemused by this, and said ‘just one person shout out please, just the person who came up’ and all the friends chorused ’she’s asleep!’.
In other shows did he send one person back off the stage saying he couldn’t use them? with this word appearing on the scroll? Did this person then fall into a knocked-out state which lasted well after the end of the show?
Other observations/questions:
When he tells the person off-mike how to do the mind-reading, and then hypnotises her and makes her forget it again, has anyone here ever been this person and more importantly can you remember anything about what he said? Could you get hypnotised agian and try to recall it?!
Has anyone noticed the subliminal ‘lead’ he puts in ‘choose a country in the world’?! (And does he do these questions just to find out the type of person he is dealing with? i.e. if they choose England following the ‘lead’, this means they are easily led? Given that the £500/5000 is a fix, too much money (and face) to risk, it doesn’t really matter anyway, but…)
And has anyone noticed that the ‘would you rather have a blue washing up bowl, brush I mean’ routine is a quote from a sketch by Victoria Wood? see http://www2.prestel.co.uk/cello/YoungLoveThree.htm
Yeah I’m pretty sure I had a look at the box all the time he fainted, and nothing happened. Cos he’s told us to watch it so avidly, though, it’s obvious that the trick is going to be somewhere else.
So then what DOES get done after the faint while the curtain is down? It’s clearly a massive opportunity to get something suspicious done (as well as for dramatic potential - more so if you haven’t read the blog beforehand - but then I think I would have been too upset! if I’d been at the front I would definitely have been going up there to pass the glass of water - poor bairn - I was getting quite cross at all those assistants not taking care of him! Then as the hysteria hotted up I realised what it was preparing. He does start to lose his voice towards the end (also evident on the video of Something Wicked) so it all comes together well).
Did anyone notice the leads before the pendulum routine? The line stuff was obvious, but including the ‘one, two’ fingers?
Hope you all continue to enjoy! Wish I lived in London so that I could go again!
And yes like other (but not all) posters here I do have a prurient interest in D’s sexuality/kinks/wiring. Do you think all that lying in broken glass, getting slapped round the face etc speaks of something? or is to appeal to the kinkier side of his fan base? or is it just me who is weird
I never picked up the ‘nudging the bean’ (?) comment with the coffee beans - I thought I knew plenty of gay slang, but this is obscure. (I can see the metaphor… but is this established usage?!)
Um, if you want to delete this comment, I accept, but please don’t ban me, and I will promise to be decorous!
Oh and
Why does he always do the ‘cock’ and ’stolen printer’ cards? Is it just for pre-arranged comedy and a bit of an easy ride on the memorising? (Also so it can look early on like he can genuinely deduce information that doesn’t need to be confirmed, so we think he is that intuitive later on…) I don’t think they have any function in signalling the next card, cos it doesn’t matter which is chosen… Good acting though!! - he seemed genuinely put out at what the (presumably stagehand) had chosen, so I assumed at the time it was a bit different every night!
What’s with the number guessing? I can see that the actual trick is getting them onto the serial numbers. However, does the guy on the phone ever get them right? In our show, out of 6 guesses he got something like 3×7 4xx, where the target number was 374 (apologies if this is a bit inaccurate, but you get the gist - correct number in right order, interspersed with others). I did wonder if the reason the ‘other’ phone is used is cos there is stuff we can’t hear going down the line to convince the listener to pick these numbers. How this would work, I don’t know.
I suspect that certain volunteers have a be a bloke simply so that the comedy works (as with ‘what are you doing on the internet at 4 in the morning’) though it’s a bit disappointing to keep ruling the women out!
Yeah and I think the ‘twitchy nod’ is serving some kind of function… you’re not telling me he can do all those things, control every nuance of speech and motion, and not fix a daft little tic?! Come on! I think it must be some kind of ‘anchor’ to link experiences (as in standard conversational hypnosis blurb) and/or a relative of the old McCabe nod to get people into a state of compliance.
At the 20 questions game Derren does send one off stage then that person’s word appears on the scroll - that was planned for the effect, but not the falling asleep. You can read a possible - and I think very good - explanation about the mind reading part at the 264th post and you are right assuming hypnosis could be a way to help recalling memories.
And thank you for the bowl, I was wondering where the hell that bit was from!
Hello! I was one of the lucky ones to be hypnotized by Derren for the card trick. All I remember him saying to me was he was going to get three people from the audience to choose a card, to clear my mind and NOT to try and guess their cards but that he would ask me a series of questions and I had to say the first thing that came into my head. I didn’t know I had been hypnotized until I was leaving the stage and he called me back. Then it left like he put me in a headlock and I was bent over with one arm hanging!! Yes I felt VERY silly!!!
In answer to the person who asked how the Oracle act works when Derren apparently reads people’s minds who didn’t even put cards in, I suspect that all the people he picks did actually put cards in the bowls, so he has already read both their question and their identifying statement and answer. If you’ve put an envelope in the bowl and it hasn’t been selected, you’re unlikely to think of a completely different fact - and even if you have you’re unlikely to say so to a full theatre.
He’s still bloody brilliant though…
Just posting to ask for followups. As you were…
Quentin your post was a repeat of a few earlier posts (e.g. 286) so its nothing new - rather than waiting for follow ups, why not read the rest of the blog and get yourself up to date?
Gemz, what was the series of questions he asked, if I can ask?
Did anyone try to register to that pub quiz blog to comment?
Hi Rita, I don’t remember the questions specificly, but they referred to numbers and the suits of the cards. He asked them so quickly and made me doubt my answers so I would change them. At one point I imagined him in a velvet red suit and he said “no not my red suit, hearts or diamonds?” It was all so quick. I had no idea I was hypnotized.
Gee, WillBox, are you always this prickly to complete strangers?
I have read the whole blog, admittedly late at night and in one whole session. So I apologise profusely for missing your words of wisdom in post 286. I promise to scrutinize your words more carefully in the future.
quentin, don’t be so sensitive, I wasnt being prickly, just answering your request for followups (i.e. there wouldnt have been any). I was also telling you where to find info about what you were posting about so whats wrong with that? You were posting about something thats been written about a few times before and quite recently, so theres no need to be sarcastic now is there.
OK: I think we’ve got our wires crossed here. My second post was because I’d neglected to tick the box requesting notifications of follow-ups to the blog and I was rectifying that. That’s the “follow-ups” I was referring to - I wasn’t asking for people to post responses to what I’d written!
And I was specifically responding to posts 281 & 285 which were pondering how Derren manages to do the later part of the Oracle act when he has apparently moved on to people who didn’t write anything on an envelope. And whilst it’s true you do address that in post 286, it obviously wasn’t that clear to me when I wrote my post. It’s certainly not something that’s been written about “a few times” - your post is the only one that refers to it.
So I still think your post 296 was unnecessary. Why bother saying it? Anyway, you can think I’m over-sensitive, and I’ll think you’re a bit pissy, and let’s just forget about it, eh?
I went to see Derren last night at the Garrick! Was amazed by the show, even though I thought I had a fairly good knowledge of the various tricks and stunts that could be used. My curiosity got the better of me, and I found this thread which I think has answered just about every question I had about the show! Good work everyone!
Just to clarify one point (I dont think anyone has given a definiate answer yet)… when Derren fainted and the curtain went down, the hanging box WAS definitly still in view - in fact it was picked out by a flashing spotlight… which gave me a clue that the fainting was a planned stunt!
It does spoil the magic when you know how it’s all done… but none the less was a great show, hugely entertaining, and at the time mind blowing, particularly The Oracle!! I would love to go back and see it all again from a more enlightened perspective. Rather than spoil things, I think this would only go to reinforce what a great showman Derren is…. and it would be a bit like watching Sixth Sense for the second time…. seeing exactly the same show but yet completely different!
Just saw the show at the Garrick on its West End run. Agree with all of the above, suspect some serious preparation went into *some* of the card reading effects. I’ve been googling a bunch of names and unlikely facts since getting home but haven’t struck a hit, guess I’m missing some of the key information they start with from credit card bookings, etc.
Bit of new information on the 7H trick. That’s certainly the common card that all four participants see. Derren forces the 7 on each of the three audience members, and then induces the on-stage member to pick the same card through verbal persuasion (unfortunately I think one of the few genuine psychological effects he uses in this predominantly magic show).
However at my show the poor dear on stage accidently picked the 8H as her second card. Derren prompted her “not quite, but you’re close”, she corrects with “9H”. D’oh! Derren then makes a magnificent last minute save, saying “let’s pick the third card a different way”, and proceeds to ’shuffle’ the deck, forcing the 7H on her the same way he does on the audience members.
The guy’s a great showman, but despite being very entertained for an evening honestly I thought this was the weakest of the three shows I’ve seen (Something Wicked for me being the standout best). Really do prefer the original material based more on NLP, psychology and Derren’s quite remarkable powers of personality.
Enjoying the current series of Trick or Treat and looking forward to “Shrodinger’s Cat”,
fLuke.
Hey fLuke,
How was Derrens ‘tick’ last night? Tuesday night he seemed to be really suffering with it, like a nervous nod. I’ve never noticed this on his TV shows or live shows on telly before… I’m thinking it’s probablly a mixture of stress and exhaustion as he is just near the end of a pretty marathon tour.
PS. I was interested in your comments about trying to look up peoples names and facts online… I’m pretty sure Derren doesnt do things that way. If you read back through this thread, all of the information he throws back during The Oracle is just what the audience gave him written on their cards in the first place, combined with a bit of good ‘ole cold reading!! Simple but very impressive, especially to the majority of the audience who didnt know that everyone had to include an ‘interesting fact’ on their card!
I went to the show last night at the Garrick and I was the person who “levitated” the table. I must just point out that if anyone else has been in this position and written about it above, I apologise; I read the first 60 or so posts and then got a) a bit bored and b) a bit disillusioned, so I decided to stop, and tell you about my experience instead!!
Anyway, I thought it was simply incredible, although despite the fact that I love Derren Brown, I am also highly skeptical and am fully aware that there is no such thing as “real magic”. I was delighted when I caught the frisbee; I’d been desperate to get up there with him and every fibre of my body was longing for the frisbee to be flung my way. This in itself is key, I think; my dad said how it was interesting that there were no serious men in pin-striped suits who went up on stage, but then conceded that they “probably wouldn’t have tried to catch the frisbee anyway”. So, just like any statistic, the fact is that the people who wrote the cards, caught the frisbee, stood up in the audience etc were not *entirely* random because they were all people who were prepared to go on stage, and who therefore had an interest, a belief, and faith in what he was doing. The non-believers would have sat, arms crossed, without attempting to make a move; so they were discarded from the start. Very helpful!
The pendulum swinging was interesting because I was absolutely, 100% convinced that I was not moving my arm or my body - even though, in my heart, I knew that I must be because there was no other way it could be moving. However, my parents were in the audience and they informed me later that they could see my hand *and* my body moving, so his real talent was making me believe that I wasn’t doing it. I was watching the swinging pendulum and thinking “I must be making that move but I can’t see how I am” because to me, my arm looked solid as a rock. This obviously meant that I was more susceptible and receptive, and that was clearly why I was one of the next four to be chosen.
Moving the round table was pretty amazing, because just from looking at it, picking it up, etc, I knew that it was heavy and sturdy, so quite how we managed to get it spinning around so smoothly and quickly is beyond me. There were no wheels and you could tell from the movement of it that they hadn’t just popped out of the feet or anything. Coincidentally, my brother was one of the other three people and we both talked about it later; neither of us were putting any pressure on it at all. Of course, we must have been - it’s that psychological ability he has, again, to make us believe we’re doing nothing when in reality we’re doing everything. But my hands were so lightly resting on the table, I was shocked as it got faster and faster. I wasn’t pushing; in fact, I was running to keep up.
When we stopped, I felt so dizzy that I barely registered him touching me on the arm and telling me to stay. By the time I had reorientated myself, the others had gone and I was alone on stage. A few photos on the powerpoint presentation later and I was writing the name of a friend who had died on a piece of paper and sticking it up my sleeve. Part of my brain was screaming “IT’S DERREN BROWN, BLOODY DERREN BROWN, AND YOU’RE ON STAGE WITH HIM! HE’S A GOD! THIS IS AMAZING!” but the rest of me was so shaken by the table moving from before - despite me knowing, again, of course, that it was all a trick - that I just did what he said and quashed the shouting voices.
The next bit was possibly the strangest of all, for me anyway. I put my hands on the table and he told me to concentrate and think of the person I had written on the paper. Yet again I knew that there was absolutely no way that my late friend would be there on stage moving the table for me; and yet, it was surprisingly easy to conjure up his face and imagine his “energy” flowing down into the table, as Derren told me to do. As I looked down at the unmoving table and concentrated with all my might, I thought “this is so awful, what if it doesn’t move, what if he’s chosen the wrong person and I can’t do this, what if I mess up the whole trick and it doesn’t work?” But as I thought that, the table jerked a little bit, and then a little bit more, and then to my incredulity it was moving around in a circle and I was following it.
Now my account of this story and that of my dad’s, who was watching *very* closely in the audience, differ slightly at this point. He swears blind that as I turned around, he could see for a clear second that my hands were free of the table; he says he saw space between them and the cloth. I, on the other hand, am adamant that they were touching the table the entire way around - only lightly, it has to be said, but nevertheless, I would swear blind that I never let go. Derren even made a reference to me “not touching the table at one point” and I agreed although I was at least touching the cloth the whole way round, if not the table itself. Maybe’s that’s irrelevant - maybe it’s key. I honestly don’t know.
Now I realise that the levitation bit which followed must have been done with magnets or something. My dad suggested he had some sort of telescopic aluminium poles which shot out from his sleeves under the table and were covered by the cloth - and the cloth certainly appeared to be quite rigid where he held it by its corners, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it were something along those lines. The way it bobbed up and down didn’t seem right for a magnetic field, and the fact that, again according to my dad, it was tipped ever so slightly towards him and there were no strings above it (he made me check), makes me certain that it was attached to him in some way. Frankly, there’s no other way it could have worked. But I’m open to suggestions.
But the turning table? Now *that* is amazing. My dad thinks it was done with magnets (or similar), but I think it was me, without knowing it. I think that his phenomenal psychological knowledge and prowess meant that he was able to convince me that the table without any force or pressure whatsoever from me, whereas in reality, I was pushing it ever so slightly, and making it move by myself. I just don’t think it could have been done in any other way. And that is truly incredible. I don’t think there were any other strings or fancy shmancy tools involved other than his intelligence, and my receptiveness. I’m not saying I moved it with my mind; far from it. I’m saying I moved it with my hands, and genuinely convinced myself that I hadn’t.
But however he did it, both the spinning and the levitation, it was fantastic; I mean, I was up there with him for the whole thing and I was totally gobsmacked. My hands were shaking and I was breathless. At the end he said “was the person you were thinking of called Vik?” and I said “yes” but it wasn’t “mind-reading” and we both knew it; he had heard me say it earlier when the four of us were around the table. This morning my dad asked me how I felt having had this “experience” with Vik, and if I felt happy or sad that I had had a connection with him, however fabricated. I said that I felt surprisingly lightened by it all. Even though I knew he had absolutely nothing to do with Derren’s trickery and fake tables, the fact that I had to picture him so strongly - and in such a positive way - was wonderful, and soothing. He may not have moved the table for me, but it was kind of wonderful to know that I could use such a negative experience (a friend dying at a very young age) to “do” something so spectacular. I never thought I would be able to use those events in such a positive way. And for that - even without the amazing tricks and showmanship and bafflement he presented us with for the rest of the show, for which alone I would have paid twice the price - I will forever be truly grateful.
Sounds like you had a great experience on stage Robyn, interesting that he picked-up the Vik reference earlier in the set piece. There really was so much going on it was hard to follow what purpose the names and bits of paper were playing, although Derren claimed it was just to give you something to focus on for the exercise.
Shoebuff - I was sitting immediately behind Verity, the girl who’d apparently lost her virginity to Elliott Haywood. Fairly sure I heard her incredulous friend rattle on about Verity not even filling out a card. They were a big group, I assumed that Verity had problem been the person booking the tickets. Just out of interest, can anyone corroborate this, did anyone have a fact called out that hadn’t been written down?
Related, last night he also got tangled-up with a guy who’d “passed his driving test on the Cook Islands”. The victim was baffled as to what Derren was talking about, he’d clearly forgotten that part of his life and had to be reminded in several ways, eventually admitting “yeah, sort of, well I passed *a* driving test on the Cook Islands”. “I’m clearly more impressed with that than you were” was Derren’s witty reply. Not sure what the clarification was supposed to mean (the guy sounded like a bit of a muppet after so much faffing and denying), but he was vague enough in his responses that I got the impression it was something he hadn’t thought about for several years, certainlty not something he’d just written on the back of a card.
I note that this seems to tie-in with Strawberries’ (#227 above) experience of a targeted audience member having cause to discuss an ex-boyfriend. Presumably someone at the same residential address at one time or another?
I didn’t spot Derren throwing out too many random events for the entire audience to pick-up on. There was an element of that (e.g. stolen printer), but in the main he seemed to be throwing events at particular people. My guess is a combination of pre-reading during the interval, preparation by his researchers online, read one-ahead where he can get away with it, and a few standard cold-reading techniques. Mixed-up and delivered in such a polished rapid-fire patter, it’s hard to keep track of exactly what’s happening throughout this part of the show.
I did note that he nailed my question in his summing up of the type of thing that most folk of different age groups tend to ask about…
By the way, could anyone find a link to the way the Losander’s Floating Table illusion actually works. Despite being not the sort of thing you expect at a Derren Brown show, it was very effective.
Before I split, will just add a few thoughts to my previous comments on the ‘magic show’ nature of this run, compared to previous apparent psychology based effects. I was actually rather disappointed with the guessing of the six people’s objects. It was so fast, so accurate, and with so little interaction, that Derren can only have been fed the information (the camera-above/stage-hand with a prompt card suggestion sounds viable). For me though, this one simple parlour trick undermines the years of effort he’d put into his reputation as a ‘psychological illusionist’. The implication is that he’s ‘cheated’ (and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word) whenever he’s done this previously. Are all those years of word games and gestures just a ploy to lure the audience into over-thinking what’s going on? Assigning Derren amazing powers of persuasion and perception, when really most of the time it’s just a magic-trick?
Still a huge fan, the TV shows and previous stage appearances seem rooted in psychology rather than illusion, although clearly there’s a mix of both throughout. For me though, Mind Reader was just a step too far into the domain of the more traditional stage magician.
Thoughts?
To be honest, i thought that the 20-questions thing was less him seeing what they’d written, and more him putting the ideas into their heads in the first place. That’s what he does - that’s his ultimate skill.
Did anyone see an episode from a while back (I’m guessing Trick of the Mind, although I couldn’t say for sure) when he had Simon Pegg on? They went into a room with a big giftwrapped box in the corner. Derren asked Simon to write down on a piece of paper what he wanted more than anything in the world, and then sealed the paper in an envelope which was was left on the table in full view throughout. He then talked to him for five minutes, what seemed like just a normal chat, and then at the end of it asked him what the thing he really wanted was. Simon replied “a red BMX bike”. Derren said “really, are you sure?” and Simon said “yes, yes, absolutely, it’s what I’ve always wanted”. So he opened the box and inside - surprise surprise - was a red BMX bike. Simon of course was absolutely delighted and then when they opened the envelope was amazed to see that he had written “black leather jacket” on the piece of paper. He then denied all knowledge of the jacket - said he only wanted the bike - no idea why he’d written it, and so on.
What was so great about this trick was that Derren then went through the entire thing again, actually re-ran the film, pointing out every single thing he had said and done to make Simon get “red BMX bike” into his head. Of course, they were the smallest and subtlest of points, but they were crucial, and brilliant. By the end of it, we could (almost) see how Simon had been convinced, even though he hadn’t even considered a red BMX bike before they’d started.
So, my point is, if he can do that to someone, or make people say a certain number, why can’t he plant a word or a thought into someone’s head for the 20-questions game? I think people are getting carried away with technology and high-tech gadets and all that jazz. I don’t believe there were any cameras, or microphones, or stooges, or information being passed down a wire (at least, not for this part, anyway). I think he used his phenomenal powers of suggestion and made them write down “beer”, “guitar string”, “book” etc, without them even realising he had done it. They thought they were choosing random words; in reality, they were choosing exactly what he wanted them to choose. He *can* make you do and say things without you even realising it. That’s what he is good at, and that’s what makes him great. That’s what makes him bloody scary!!
Ooh, also, that’s so funny that you were in the same audience as me. You saw me on stage! What did you think? Did you see my hands le