Derren Brown
Derren Brown is an English mentalist, illusionist, and writer. He is a self-described "psychological illusionist" whose acts are often designed to expose the methods of those who claim to possess supernatural powers, such as faith healers and mediums. His live performances, which incorporate audience participation and comedy, often include statements describing how his effects are achieved through a combination of psychology, showmanship, magic, misdirection, and suggestion.
Brown began performing in 1992, making his television debut with Mind Control. He has since starred in several more shows for stage and television, including Something Wicked This Way Comes and Svengali which won him two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment, as well as The Experiments for which he was awarded a BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme at the 2012 awards. Brown made his Broadway debut with his 2019 stage show Secret. He has also written books for both magicians and the general public.
Early life
Derren Brown was born in the London Borough of Croydon on 27 February 1971, the son of Chris and Bob Brown. He was raised in Croydon's Purley area, which he described as "the epitome of middle-class suburbia", and he has a brother who is nine years younger than him. He was privately educated at Whitgift School in South Croydon, where his father was a swimming coach, before going on to study law and German at the University of Bristol. While there, he attended a hypnotist show by Martin S. Taylor, which inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. As an undergraduate, he started working as a conjuror, performing the traditional skills of close-up magic in bars and restaurants. In 1992, he started performing stage shows at the University of Bristol under the stage name Darren V. Brown; the "V" stood for "Victor".Career
At the International Magic shop in Clerkenwell, Brown met Scottish-American magician and comedian Jerry Sadowitz, who put him in touch with H&R publishers and magician Andrew O'Connor's production company Objective Productions. This led to his television debut with the show Mind Control, which became one of the company's award-winning productions. After several shows with Objective, Brown set up his own company Vaudeville Productions with former Objective executives Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, and Paul Sandler, in order to produce his own shows as well as other projects with other performers. Its first show was Brown's TV special, Pushed to the Edge.In 2008, Brown made a brief cameo in the supernatural drama series Crooked House. An interview with Brown was featured in Richard Dawkins' 2009 two-part documentary series The Enemies of Reason. Brown explained various psychological techniques used by purported psychics and spiritual mediums to manipulate their audiences. The most notable was cold reading, a technique which he discusses extensively in his book Tricks of the Mind. Some video footage was also used from his TV special Messiah. As part of Channel 4's 3D season in 2009, Brown presented Derren Brown's 3D Magic Spectacular. The show was not a new special from Brown, who instead presented a number of other magicians and clips. However, he did include one extract taken from a 2006 episode of Trick of the Mind in which he found an object that had been hidden in the streets of Venice by a volunteer.
In January 2011, to celebrate 10 years since his first television appearance, Channel 4 held a special "Derren Brown Night". As well as re-showing The Heist and one of his Enigma live shows, the channel screened a special documentary called Derren Brown: Behind the Mischief. It was a personal and candid film about Brown which included the story of how he met his co-writer, his mother's feelings about his involvement in the Russian Roulette special, and an emotional visit back to his old school, university, and bars/pubs where he first began his career. Celebrity contributors included Matt Lucas, Jo Whiley, Stephen Merchant, and Simon Pegg. In January 2013, he was featured in a Channel 4 Deal or No Deal special, where he appeared to have predicted all the correct boxes to win the big jackpot of £250,000. That same year, he appeared in a comedy sketch at the beginning of an 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Deal or No Deal special.
In January 2014, Brown appeared as himself in the Sherlock episode "The Empty Hearse", as part of a theory regarding how the title character faked his own death. On 9 November 2018, he appeared as a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience to promote his Netflix special Sacrifice.
In February 2021, Brown appeared in a trailer for the horror video game Little Nightmares II, in which he discussed the nature of nightmares while some of the monsters featured in the game appeared around him.
Methods
Suggested methods
Brown states that he uses a variety of methods to achieve his illusions including traditional magic/conjuring techniques, memory techniques, hypnosis, body language reading, cognitive psychology, cold reading, and psychological, subliminal, and ideomotor suggestion. Others additionally ascribe methods to him that he denies, ranging from the pseudoscience neuro-linguistic programming to paid actors.In an interview in New Scientist in 2005, when asked how he "acquired his psychological skills", Brown says that he learnt skills as a hypnotist, which he was not sure how to apply until he started performing close-up magic. When asked whether he is able to detect lies, Brown claimed to be able to read subtle cues such as micro-muscle movements that indicate to him if someone is lying. Concerning his apparent success at hypnotising people, he stated that he can normally spot a suggestible type of person and chooses that person to be his participant. He believes that the presence of a television camera also increases suggestibility.
Several authors have claimed that Brown uses neuro-linguistic programming in his act which "consists of a range of magical 'tricks', misdirection and, most intriguing, setting up audiences to provide the response that he wishes them to provide by using subtle subliminal cues in his conversation with them". In response to the accusation that he unfairly claims to be using NLP whenever he performs, he wrote, "The truth is I have never mentioned it outside of my book." He does have an off-stage curiosity about the system, and discusses it in the larger context of hypnotism and suggestion. In his book Tricks of the Mind, he mentions that he attended an NLP course with Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP and mentor of Paul McKenna. He also describes the NLP concept of eye-accessing cues as a technique of "limited use" in his book Pure Effect. Brown also mentions in Tricks of the Mind that NLP students were given a certificate after a four-day course, certifying them to practise NLP as a therapist. A year after Brown attended the class, he received a number of letters saying that he would receive another certificate, not for passing a test, but for keeping in touch. After ignoring their request, he later received the new certificate for NLP in the post, unsolicited.
Actual versus suggested methods
Brown often claims to reveal the methods by which he achieves his tricks, but this is typically an additional layer of misdirection, as the stated methods are not the methods that he uses. The perception by his audience that he uses deep psychological insights typically aids the misdirection required for his tricks. He employs a variety of techniques to ensure his audience cannot deduce the methods behind his illusions. Some critics have argued that his presentation as a sceptic might be misleading, as certain elements of his performances could be interpreted as promoting pseudoscience. For example, after performing a trick in which he appeared to predict lottery numbers, his demonstrated explanation included using the Wisdom of Crowds, but it has been theorised that the actual method relied on split-screen video. Some commentators have suggested that such performances might inadvertently conflict with efforts to reduce magical thinking.In a Daily Telegraph article published in 2003, Simon Singh criticised Brown's early TV appearances, arguing that he presented standard magic and mentalism effects—such as the classic ten-card poker deal trick—as genuine psychological manipulation. On Brown's television and live shows, he often appears to show the audience how a particular effect was created—claiming to use techniques such as subliminal suggestion, hypnosis, and body language reading. Singh's suggestion is that these explanations are dishonest. Furthermore, Singh took exception to the programme's website being categorised under Channel 4's "Science" section. The mini-site was later reclassified under 'Entertainment' instead of 'Science'.
In his 2006 book Tricks of the Mind, Brown wrote, "I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty... I happily admit cheating, as it's all part of the game" and claimed to never use actors or "stooges" in his work without informing the viewers, calling it "artistically repugnant and simply unnecessary". However, in an October 2010 interview, Brown conceded that Singh may have had a point, explaining that at the start of his television career "I was overstating the case, overstating my skills. I thought there'll only be one show, there'll never be a repeat, so I might as well go for it."
Controversies
In 2007, BBC News listed Brown's shows Russian Roulette and Seance in a list of examples of Channel 4's "legacy of controversy". Public complaints that Russian Roulette was distasteful, made light of suicide, and promoted gun culture were ultimately rejected by Ofcom on the basis that the context was enough and that the warnings given were sufficient. Additionally, the use of a 15-minute time delay ensured no viewer would have seen the result of any mistake. The police had also warned that the show might inspire copycat acts. In 2013, Brown said, "Controversy has never interested me for its own sake. It's always been about doing stuff that feels dramatic."Seance received a significant number of complaints, including 487 to Channel 4 and 208 to Ofcom. Most were from church groups and came before transmission, i.e. before Brown revealed during the broadcast that his attempt to contact the dead was a hoax. The show was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. The GMB union criticised Heist on behalf of security workers, arguing it was "irresponsible and insensitive" in light of increased attacks on staff. Channel 4 responded by arguing that it was made "very clear that attempting any form of robbery was criminal behaviour". An episode of Trick or Treat, which appeared to show Brown convincing someone to press a button even though they thought it would electrocute a kitten inside a metal box, caused charity Cats Protection to complain and news outlets to label Brown a "cat killer". He responded by arguing they had misunderstood the trick as the box was not wired up and that he "wasn’t glorifying cruelty to cats people would have been hard-pressed to recreate the electrocution device at home even if they wanted to". Another episode, which saw someone hypnotised into thinking they had been killed in a car crash after not wearing a seatbelt, was criticised by a road safety charity which alleged it trivialised the issue.
Ofcom received 11 complaints and began an investigation relating to the safety of a scene in Hero at 30,000 Feet, in which the subject was shown chained to a railway line in order to escape from an oncoming train. The show is listed in the "Other Programmes Not in Breach" category of their Ofcom's Broadcast Bulletin, Issue Number 168, without any explanation as to why it was decided that it is not in breach.
Self-proclaimed psychic Joe Power, the subject of the Derren Brown Investigates episode "The Man Who Contacts the Dead", complained to Ofcom about being misled and treated unfairly and said the programme "presented, disregarded or omitted material facts". He also alleged he had received threats from sceptics and had to move home because of it. Ofcom rejected his complaint on the basis that Power had been fully apprised of the sceptical nature of the programme, and his actions had been presented fairly.
Brown has faced allegations of using stooges in his work. Viewers complained that the subject of Apocalypse was an actor, pointing to his CastingCallPro account as evidence; Brown dismissed these allegations as conspiracy theories and called them untrue and hurtful, while the head of CastingCallPro pointed out that the subject had created an account on the website a long time ago but never completed his profile or looked for work on the website.