The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing the World He Didn't Exist
**Alert: Spoilers
The greatest trick Derren Brown has pulled off is persuading everybody not to review his show.
His latest one, Showman, I saw yesterday for the second time.
It's not good.
And a year in it should be by now. It was actually worse than a year ago.
He was looking tired, a large prop in the form of a bulky wheelchair is brought onto the stage early on, and the sequence it heralds still half-failed. And as the sequence was just spinning a coin and seeing if it would land heads or tails, it was hardly a visual spectacle.
The next was rolling a die to see when a chosen number between one and six would come up - again, not much of a spectacle.
This from a performer whose television shows acted out the End of the World, or played with death in Russian Roulette, or assassinated Stephen Fry or pushed somebody off a building .
I know this is theatre not TV and I have seen all but one of his live shows and several more than once. They used to be highly entertaining.
I know enough about magic and hypnosis to know how he does 95% of the stuff and the other 5%....well, I have to look cynically at the many "ushers" he brings with him to the theatre.
But because Showman lacks the spectacle of some of his earliest shows, there is no reason for us to be sworn to secrecy.
There is no big reveal, there is no stunning jaw-dropping denouement.
In previous Derren Brown audiences, I'd gasped with the rest of the audience. Here, there were no gasps.
It wasn't just that the overlong 40 minute interval (for technical difficulties!) withdrew the energy from the room because there wasn't much energy to begin with, either on stage or in the audience.
Derren has relied much more on stage hypnotism in his recent shows, being careful to say "this isn't hypnotism" in order to avoid any restrictions from the 1952 Stage Hypnotism act. And he gets away with this because he's not saying "Come and see Derren Brown hypnotise" despite the fact that is exactly what he is doing.
That would still be just about ok except that the hypnotism he was doing could not have been more standard - routines that make audience members forget the number 7 and their own name is part of just about every hypnotism show I've ever seen. And I've seen plenty.
I can see how Derren and Andy Nyman will justify this to themselves. They will say to themselves that not so many people are doing this sort of act anymore. So why don't we just go do it? But the answer is because all the other hypnosis acts out there are doing it.
We were expecting something more in the way of originality. We expect something greater from Derren Brown. God knows we'd paid through the nose for it.
He didn't even wipe the suggestions from the volunteers sufficiently. Going back to help one-woman who had still not remembered her name, he pretty much ignored everybody else who might have been exactly the same situation.
It was sloppy
The only secret here is that he is using very old routines.
When the big Teddy is given away (there is a nice funny moment from a photograph that I am happy not to spoil ), everybody in the audience would know that his name had just been printed by a stagehand for placing on the Teddy because there's no other possible explanation.
There is no magic here. There's nothing magical. There's not even very much of interest.
An attempt at psychometry - doing readings on objects brought by audience members largely fails. I can see from some reviews is not the first time.
And boy did it go on forever as he flustered around before resorting to a safe "hit " at the end that he had in his back pocket
He puts a ring on a glass stem at the end - a shop bought trick. OK but not really on brand.
I am willing to suspend belief. I am not expecting to be fooled and I can enjoy a trick even if I know a plausible method to two. But I do need to be entertained
Continuing to ask his audience to not review anything in the show implies that they have been privy to something other than a mediocre magic show with some fairly mediocre hypnosis.
It also means that you can never get honest reviews about Derren Brown's theatrical shows. This is one.
I can't even find one on youtube.
Spoiler alerts are perfectly easy to notify for those who do need them.
Let's talk turkey.
**Alert: Spoilers
The greatest trick Derren Brown has pulled off is persuading everybody not to review his show.
His latest one, Showman, I saw yesterday for the second time.
It's not good.
And a year in it should be by now. It was actually worse than a year ago.
He was looking tired, a large prop in the form of a bulky wheelchair is brought onto the stage early on, and the sequence it heralds still half-failed. And as the sequence was just spinning a coin and seeing if it would land heads or tails, it was hardly a visual spectacle.
The next was rolling a die to see when a chosen number between one and six would come up - again, not much of a spectacle.
This from a performer whose television shows acted out the End of the World, or played with death in Russian Roulette, or assassinated Stephen Fry or pushed somebody off a building .
I know this is theatre not TV and I have seen all but one of his live shows and several more than once. They used to be highly entertaining.
I know enough about magic and hypnosis to know how he does 95% of the stuff and the other 5%....well, I have to look cynically at the many "ushers" he brings with him to the theatre.
But because Showman lacks the spectacle of some of his earliest shows, there is no reason for us to be sworn to secrecy.
There is no big reveal, there is no stunning jaw-dropping denouement.
In previous Derren Brown audiences, I'd gasped with the rest of the audience. Here, there were no gasps.
It wasn't just that the overlong 40 minute interval (for technical difficulties!) withdrew the energy from the room because there wasn't much energy to begin with, either on stage or in the audience.
Derren has relied much more on stage hypnotism in his recent shows, being careful to say "this isn't hypnotism" in order to avoid any restrictions from the 1952 Stage Hypnotism act. And he gets away with this because he's not saying "Come and see Derren Brown hypnotise" despite the fact that is exactly what he is doing.
That would still be just about ok except that the hypnotism he was doing could not have been more standard - routines that make audience members forget the number 7 and their own name is part of just about every hypnotism show I've ever seen. And I've seen plenty.
I can see how Derren and Andy Nyman will justify this to themselves. They will say to themselves that not so many people are doing this sort of act anymore. So why don't we just go do it? But the answer is because all the other hypnosis acts out there are doing it.
We were expecting something more in the way of originality. We expect something greater from Derren Brown. God knows we'd paid through the nose for it.
He didn't even wipe the suggestions from the volunteers sufficiently. Going back to help one-woman who had still not remembered her name, he pretty much ignored everybody else who might have been exactly the same situation.
It was sloppy
The only secret here is that he is using very old routines.
When the big Teddy is given away (there is a nice funny moment from a photograph that I am happy not to spoil ), everybody in the audience would know that his name had just been printed by a stagehand for placing on the Teddy because there's no other possible explanation.
There is no magic here. There's nothing magical. There's not even very much of interest.
An attempt at psychometry - doing readings on objects brought by audience members largely fails. I can see from some reviews is not the first time.
And boy did it go on forever as he flustered around before resorting to a safe "hit " at the end that he had in his back pocket
He puts a ring on a glass stem at the end - a shop bought trick. OK but not really on brand.
I am willing to suspend belief. I am not expecting to be fooled and I can enjoy a trick even if I know a plausible method to two. But I do need to be entertained
Continuing to ask his audience to not review anything in the show implies that they have been privy to something other than a mediocre magic show with some fairly mediocre hypnosis.
It also means that you can never get honest reviews about Derren Brown's theatrical shows. This is one.
I can't even find one on youtube.
Spoiler alerts are perfectly easy to notify for those who do need them.
Let's talk turkey.
A 250 date tour should clear £25 million.
People love him.
I love him.
But cult-like control over a loving audience, some of whom still swear he is reading body language, is getting thin.
Showman should be a lot better.
People love him.
I love him.
But cult-like control over a loving audience, some of whom still swear he is reading body language, is getting thin.
Showman should be a lot better.
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