Derren Brown

I have never really watched any of Derren Brown's TV shows. Not because I am not interested, but more because I either don't realise they are on, or I am just not able to watch.

However, I am very interested in what he does, so when my good friend Mohan offered me his two spare tickets, I thought, "well, there is nothing to lose and it might be entertaining".

I am reasonably sceptical of psychic abilities, and I do not like hypnosis as a form of entertainment. Derren Brown does use some hypnosis, but he is adamant that he is not psychic. Some of what he did was astonishing, some was plain and simple distraction (the sort that a conjuror might use when performing a card trick). However, DB seems quite willing to explain a lot of his techniques. While it would be very easy to harp on in depth about the conscious and sub-conscious mind, it was simply that he would talk a lot, the audience would be trying to second-guess what was going to happen next, and so things would come as a surprise. The best example of this was when a man came on stage in a gorilla suit and stole a banana from a table - only about three people in the audience noticed!

The second half of the show was altogether more complex; it was a tribute to many of the "mind-tricksters" of the past. This included a "seance", whereupon members of the audience would make a table levitate using the powers of the spirit world (or so DB would have us believe), and also a trick called the "Oracle", whereby audience members would write questions, put them in an envelope, and write their initials on the front. DB would then guess the question and answer simply by looking at the envelope, and then did it simply by feel (he was wearing a massive blindfold).

All in all, an entertaining show. The only blackmark in my mind was the use of hypnosis on an audience member - I disagree very strongly with this as it is impossible to tell what long-term effects this may have on someone (I am sure you may have heard horror stories of more vulnerable people who say that their lives changed forever after going to hypnotist's shows). However, DB has clearly done his homework on psychiatric and psychological techniques, and also demostrates a very strong affinity to those who have attempted to perform mind tricks in the past.

Finally, a big thank you to Mohan for the tickets!