Review of the Tobacco Factory 2002

November 2002

Reviewed by Doctor Omni
(a huge thanks to Doctor Omni for sending this in)

Review of act I

Well, I saw Derren Brown's show last night, and I can tell you that it's very good indeed, a virtuoso performance by a consummate master showman. I'm actually booked to go again on Tuesday night, so I would actually be inclined to post a review after seeing it twice.

However, I don't want to cause you guys any sleepless nights, so let me just *briefly* describe the show.

A small theatre in Bristol, the building converted from a previous purpose. (The fact that the theatre is called the Tobacco Factory should give some clues for cold readers...) Every one of the 250 seats filled on this Friday night, mostly fairly young people, probably a lot of them students in this university town.

The show opens with a few props on stage: a whiteboard with a square, circle and triangle on it, two wooden chairs, a table with some clipboards and bits and pieces on it. Then the lights go down and we are in darkness.

The voice of Derren Brown comes through the PA system: a witty series of remarks about how he can see us but we can't see him. He asks a girl to stand up and pick up a piece of paper which has been crushed into a ball. She throws this ball of paper back behind her and it is caught by an older lady.

Derren's disembodied voice then asks this lady to select one of the three shapes on the whiteboard. After her selection, and on Derren's command, the girl at the front then goes to the table and picks up a sheet of paper, reading out what it says. Some complimentary remarks about Derren, then some comments, correctly identifying the result.

Derren Brown then strides on stage to applause and gives his spiel about the use of body language, psychological cues and so on, and disclaiming any psychic or supernatural abilities.

Instead of his customary Victorian costume, he wears a black corduroy suit with an open white shirt and scruffy shoes. He gets the whole audience on their feet, playing a verbal trick about holding a £1 coin in either their left or right hand.

Those who fail the test (myself included) are asked to return to their seats. He then offers a £50 bet to a (different) girl in the front row, who remains standing, that he can tell which hand she holds a coin in, four times in a row - or else she gets the £50 note.

Of course, he gets it right all four times and keeps his money. Derren then places a £500 cheque in one envelope and a photo of his parrot Figaro in another envelope and shuffles them.

He places one envelope on a stand on the left of the stage and the other on the right. The same girl is then invited to choose one of the two envelopes. She picks the one stage right (audience left), and a running gag throughout the show is then Derren's none-too-subtle attempts to influence her to select the other envelope.

Yet another girl and a young guy from the audience are then brought on stage and given clipboards. The girl is asked to write down a name from her past, while the young man is invited to draw something on his clipboard. (I was right behind this young man, and saw his drawing.)

The girl hands the clipboard to Derren, who puts it down on the table and then is unable to say what the name is. This slight hiccup is followed by a triumph with the young man. Derren notes that the fellow strode onto the stage with a certain stage presence, and said "You must be a performer of some kind."
"Yes." "You're wearing a black shirt, so you're probably a magician." "Yes." Strong applause and laughter from the audience.

Derren then goes on to draw a pack of cards with the ace of spades on top on the whiteboard, with the word "CARDS" underneath. More strong applause.

Then Derren invites two women from the audience to take their seats on stage, hypnotises them and performs "Lift" - one of his trademark effects - with them.

With "Lift", the idea is that a form of telepathy is established between two subjects who are positioned one behind the other. The subject who is positioned behind raises his or her hand, and the other subject receives a telepathic signal, so that he or she raises his or her hands in synchronicity, despite being unable to see the other subject.

Last night, the effect seemed a bit haphazard and long drawn out - Derren had to replace one subject with a substitute from the audience - but in the end the effect rings true, and the audience applauds with gasps of astonishment as the subjects' hands rise in unison.

This is followed by a version of Banachek's trademark effect "Psychokinetic Touches", which is much shorter and more to-the-point than Banachek's handling. Derren taps one of the two subjects on the shoulder and asks the other (whose eyes are closed) how many times he has tapped the other's shoulder. She correctly answers to the audience's audible approval.

Then it's time for Derren's other signature piece, "Reminiscence", again presented here with some refinements, in this case much more actively involving the audience and their (supposed) receiving of communication from the hypnotised subject. With a subject seated on stage, he talks about memory and communication. He has a pile of cards marked with themes like "Love", "Career", "Finance", and so on, which are shown to the girl seated on stage.

The girl is hypnotised and invited to think of a scene from childhood. Members of the audience are then invited to receive her thoughts about the scene. Derren then goes around the audience asking what age she is, where the scene takes place, and writes them on the whiteboard. The hypnotised girl (whose back is to the whiteboard and whose eyes are closed) is then asked the same questions, and she says the same things that are written on the board behind. Applause from the audience.

Derren then writes, that, occasion being thought of, is an individual's birthday. She confirms this. He attempts the teacher's surname, and invites a member of the audience to complete the name. He writes
"Hollis". She reveals that the name is "Hill"; Derren praises him for getting the double L.

This carries on for some time, building good drama as the piece of the scene are gradually revealed through what seems to be a group experience.

Just before the interval, Derren warns that the second act will be spooky and supernatural, involving spiritualism and the use of an ouija board, and that anyone with religious objections to these, is free to leave the theatre at the interval and not come back.

(Every single individual came back after the interval.) He said that there were clipboards out in the bar, and invited people during the interval to write down their memories of someone who they knew who had died, for use in the spiritualism of the second act. That was the end of the first act, and we all went to the bar for a drink.

Review of Act II

As we all re-assemble in the auditorium, the sound of a bell continuously ringing is heard over the PA system. Then, with the lights low, Derren Brown walks onto stage centre, ringing a small bell in his hand. He places the bell on a table to the side, and then talks about the history of spiritualism. In deference to the performer's wish that the second act should be covered only vaguely, without specific descriptions, I will endeavour to give a general impression of the second act which gives the reader some feel of what it is like.

What would it be like to *really* communicate with people who have died but in some sense are able to make their presence felt? This, as far as I can tell, is the question that Mr Brown attempts to answer in the second act of his show. Without giving away any specifics, this question is answered in the form of two lengthy routines. In the first routine, the identity of a person who has died is gradually revealed through active participation by audience members, and there is a display of (what appears to be) rather accurate cold reading by two ladies from the audience. In the second routine, an attempt is made to contact the "dear departed" through an impromptu ouija board, while the audience are asked to hold hands, in classic séance style. There is a surprise climax to this routine, in which - shall we say - it appears that a "crossed line" has taken place in the world of spiritual communication.

With the finale of the show we are back on the traditional ground of mentalism with which act I is concerned. A lady in the audience is invited to select a number, which is revealed in the context of a "magic square". Derren exits with the only display of conventional magic in the entire show: a burst of flash paper comes out of his hand as the lights go down quickly and the audience gives him richly-deserved applause and cheers.

(Note - I sincerely hope that this description of act II is sufficiently vague to satisfy both those people who didn't get the chance to see the show, and who want to know what happened, and also Derren himself, who sent me a very courteous and reasonable e-mail through an intermediary on this talkboard - sadly not via my trusty ouija board - requesting only a vague review of act II in order not to spoil the surprise for those who will be seeing the UK national theatre tour of the show next year.)

Overview of the Derren Brown show

One of the marks of a true showman is that he manages to create a "persona", or image, about him which gets people talking long after he is has left the stage or screen. By this definition, Derren Brown has become such a showman in Britain. As a result of his extraordinarily popular television shows, he has become a nationally-known figure, whether people know him by name or as "that bloke on the telly who reads people's minds - not David Blaine, the English one". Derren's use of the methods (or, at least, the vocabulary) of neuro-linguistic programming, body language, hypnosis, non-verbal communication, and the like, in his television shows, have captured the public's imagination by tapping into the intellectual currents of our time, just as "mystery men" - and women - of previous generations have drawn from the world of ESP and the powers apparently discovered by Dr Rhine at Duke University, and before that from communications with the "dear departed" on the "other side", and before that from communication with various supernatural beings, invoked by some ritual or other. Derren Brown's persona is now sufficiently well established in Britain for him to perform his show without the need to spell out his presentation in any detail. Indeed, part of the fun of the Bristol show is a series of games with the audience in which Derren grossly over-states his "subtle suggestions" in the most obvious possible way in situations when audience members are faced with making choices in the attempt to outwit him. For his fans, such self-satire is both understandable and entertaining.

The reality of the young man who hides behind this persona is no less fascinating, certainly for those connected in any way with psychological or magical entertainment. Derren Brown combines a high level of intellectual interest and artistic ability with what must be a colossal amount of hard and dedicated work in order to make his performances seem so effortless. A "cold reading" derived from his marvellous portraits of actors, magicians and historical figures, which are almost caricatures reflected in a fairground distorting mirror (and which can be seen on his website www.derrenbrown.co.uk), would reveal an artist who combines an extraordinary capacity for perception of personality with a high level of technical artistic proficiency and a desire to recreate the world in a recognisable but slightly skewed way - precisely the qualities he brings to his performances.

At the same time as he honed his abilities as a magician over many years in the hard school of restaurant work and corporate events, to become one of the most skilled manipulators (especially of playing cards) in Great Britain, he also has studied deeply the literature of theatre, of psychology and other fields, always seeking to integrate his growing knowledge into ever more original entertainment which looks less and less like traditional magic. He understands the fact - regrettable, perhaps, but a fact nevertheless - that performances of Metamorphosis or Zombie or the Zig-Zag Girl, however skilfully executed, create little emotional charge with today's audiences. In all his television and stage shows, he seeks to create original effects which actively involve the audience, with no need to look anything like most people's idea of "magic tricks".

With the Bristol show, we see a complete evening's entertainment, in which the various routines elicit a wide range of emotions in the audience the audience. There is black comedy, derived partly from Derren's deadpan wit, and partly from the situations in which he involves audience members. For example, in the opening routine a girl from the audience is asked to read out what is written on a piece of paper: she reads out some lavish praise of Derren, whose disembodied voice then replies, "Just read what's on the paper". There is amazement, as numbers, names and drawings on clipboard are revealed, and members of the audience appear to pick up images and memories inside the head of a spectator on stage. In act II, there is also intended to be fear and a genuine sense of communication with the dead, but here the only significant weakness of the show appears. Trying to be as vague as possible about the content of act II (in accordance with Derren's wishes expressed to reviewers), there are simply too many disclaimers. The first disclaimer is witty enough, given in the context of an account of the origins of spiritualism, but later on a series of emphatic disclaimers is given in a situation which is far from humorous. The effect of this, in my opinion, is to both to confuse the audience and to deny them the full effect of a supernatural experience. After all, the audience is bound to think, if the guy has just announced that there are no spirits, then he's implicitly admitting those manifestations we just saw must be simple conjuring tricks of some kind. Although the atmosphere of a séance is created well, it is done in an understated way. When, at the end of act I, Derren announced that we would be delving into the realm of spiritualism, I was hoping that we'd at least see some ectoplasm fly out of someone's mouth and a fiery red hand cross the stage before the evening was finished. Instead, the combination of understatement and disclaimers led to a sense of anti-climax in act II, which seems too "sanitised" to really satisfy. It's quite possible that Derren is genuinely concerned not to upset people who have recently lost loved ones, and he may wish to avoid going to prison under the Fraudulent Mediums Act, a law still on the statute books in Britain (now that would be some publicity stunt), but the show would have been considerably strengthened - and reach a better climax - by leaving at least a suspicion in the minds of some audience members that what they saw and heard *might* be a real spiritual manifestation.

The point was put somewhat more strongly by Charles W. Cameron, in the first issue of "Invocation", the journal of bizarre magic:

'The "silks from a box" man rants and raves about the ethics of "claiming supernatural powers" and insists that the public should be "protected" from these "charlatans and psychic impostors". Rubbish and triple balderdash!

'Either he is working MAGIC or he is presenting mechanical or manipulative mumbo jumbo - he cannot have it both ways!

'The usual argument is that the spectator should "believe" in the magician's powers during his act (akin to empathy while watching a film) but regain reality at the conclusion of the performance. Stuff and faddling nonsense!!

'Either you are a magician with magical powers or you are not. It is as basic as that!!

'Like it or not almost everyone believes in the Unknown - they want to experience the supernatural - they want to see miracles.'

But some such minor misjudgement, from this point of view, is almost inevitable in any show where really original and creative entertainment is put on show. Overwhelmingly, Derren Brown's theatrical show is excellent in concept, excellent in performance and excellent in entertainment.