Where was I?

Ah yes. Friday. Derren Brown. Jolly good show.

If you haven't heard of Derren Brown before, he's best described as a magician, though one of the new breed, following more closely in the footsteps of David Blaine that of, say, David Copperfield or Paul Daniels. Like Blaine he's got his own particular shtick, though whereas Blaine typically performs relatively routine tricks albeit with his moody demeanour, Brown seems to be doing something wholly different, namely performing tricks with a decidedly psychological bent to them. Such as asking someone to concentrate upon an image from their childhood and then describing the scene in uncannily accurate detail, or asking someone to drawn an image at the same time he himself draws something - naturally both images are identical. He tends to eschew flashiness in favour of subtlety, which after Blaine's antics last year is something of a refreshing change. Having said that, Brown's career did threaten to go off the rails after he staged (staged being the operative word as several newspapers gleefully pointed out afterwards) a game of Russian roulette. I think he was humbled by the negative backlash that generated, and his current series on Channel 4 shows him in humbler, though still delightfully arrogant, form

As was already evident from his tv work, and as he ably demonstrated on stage, Brown is amazingly charismatic performer with great stage presence and the ability to charm the pants off the crowd (and unfortunately I mean that quite literally - a woman sitting behind me seemed frighteningly determined to bed the man). His show consisted of two acts, the first of which was largely humorous, whereas the latter part started to take itself perhaps a little too seriously. Most of what he did wasn't anything that he hasn't already done on television already, but it's still remarkable to see it happen in front of you. I think Brown is at his best when he doesn't overplay the generally spooky nature of what he does and this served him well in the first act, wherein he demonstrated that he has a fine sense of humour, occasionally at the expense of the audience, though without being mean spirited. Probably the highlight of this section was when he invited a woman on stage early on, and asked her to choose from two envelopes, one of which contained a cheque for £500 and the other a picture of his pet parrot (not worth £500). She picked one and returned to her seat and he placed the two envelopes at either end of stage, and told the woman that by the end of the act he'd persuade her to change her mind, constantly referring back to the envelopes to amusing effect as the act progresses. When the time came to open the envelopes, the woman finally wavered and changed her mind walking away with the picture of the parrot, as he'd so rightly predicted at the the beginning. His skills of persuasion are quite remarkable.

As I alluded above, the second act discarded much of the humour and played as a darker and altogether more creepy experience. To Brown's credit, he always goes out of his way to debunk himself, swearing to the audience that there's not the slightest hint of the supernatural in what he does (which is probably just as well, since I'm sure there were a few people in the crowd ready to denounce him as a witch and begin the dunking). He implored the gallery not to reveal exactly what this act contained, and since I have a modicum of respect for the man I'll hold to his wishes. But I will say that it was an impressive display and I have no earthly idea how he could have pulled it off without the use of stooges in the audience. Naturally Brown swears that he doesn't use plants, but then he would wouldn't he? At the end of the show I noticed the volunteer he used for this finale heading around the back of the theatre to wait amidst the milling crowd that was rapidly gathering to accost Brown for his autograph. Out of curiosity, I waited along with them to see what this woman wanted to say, to see, perhaps if she was indeed a stooge. Judging from her still shocked reaction, she wasn't, but then of course, you really wouldn't put it past Brown to stage even this, such is the nature of what he does.

For my part, I hung around a little longer that I might otherwise have done for a chance to speak to the man. I turned down the opportunity for an autograph (I can thus add Derren Brown to my growing collection of people whose autographs I don't have, my favourite still being Neil Caiman's) and politely declined his offer to sign my forehead (which I don't believe he was entirely serious about, though I can't be completely sure). Instead I merely paid him a compliment and asked for no more than he'd already given. He replied that that was very sweet of me. Derren Brown said I was sweet.

How deeply disturbing...