26th May 2008 ~ Derren Brown, Mind Reader - An Evening Of Wonders
Went for the Derren Brown show at Garrick Theatre on the second May Bank Holiday. Had been eagerly waiting to watch it, anticipating what kind of surprise he will bring to the show. Although there were very much similiarities between the tour and his TV shows and Book, it was a whole different experience all together.
The whole show was very much relied on audience interaction. It started with showing plain words on the screen, giving a lil background about mind reading stuff and then showed a video of four people playing ping pong and asking us to count how many times the people in white (2 out of the four, the other 2 were in black) passed the ball. I counted 53. But the answer came up to 57. I must have missed some! And the video continued asking us (no sound btw, all plain words) if we noticed there were to gorrillas which replaced the other two people in black. And to be honest, I didn't event notice it! Yea, most of the people was just focusing on the two players in white.
After the video, he came on stage. He started off by telling us that he has two boxes. One with £500 in it and another with £5000. He will bring one of them out, covered with a cloth and get one of the audience to guess how much money the box contains. He threw a frisbee out and whoever gets it, the nearest male get the chance to give it a go. The man chose £5000. Ok keep this here for the moment. As he revealed the answer later in the show.
Then he threw some frisbees out again to get 6 audience on stage. He asked them to write an object on a piece of paper without letting him know what they have written and he was supposed to guess what the objects were. Amazingly, he got them all right! Oh man.
And then he got another guy on stage and ask the guy to phone someone. He explained to us that the trick he was going to perform is to get the person on the phone say three numbers he has already written on the board. And if he failed to guess what the person on the phone said, he will give £10 to the guy. He wrote 3,4 and 7. Then proceed to getting the guy phone whoever the guy wanted to. Before that, Derren asked the guy some questions about the friend the guy is calling. When the phone got through, the person on the phone initially gave 7,7,8 as the three numbers. Pretending he had failed to persuade the person on the phone, he gave him another chance. The second time, the person on the phone gave him 5,5,7. Ok so it's not quite right. And so he ask the guy to say goodbye and hung up. It turned out, the numbers 7,7,8,5,5,7 was the six numbers on the ten pound note he promised to give the guy!!! Wow, how did he do that?!
He then did some card tricks, and towards the end of the first half, he suddenly appeared in a gorrilla suit! Ok I think it happened like that, there was actually a board he wrote the numbers on, on the left hand side of the stage. He pretended to carry the board from one side of the stage to the other by going around the back of the board. I think at that point, he had already switched with another person. He then turned up in the gorrilla suit on the left side of the stage! Hmm. Did I guess right that is the trick?
Before the interval, he told us to get a card and evelope during the interval and write a question we would like to ask on a card, sealed it in the evelope and put it in a bowl on the stage that he would later choose some and try to "guess" what the question was. This was optional though. He named the act The Oracle. He came out during the second part in a tux. The atmosphere has became quite tensed.
The next act, he got about 10 ppl on stage and ask them to hold a pendulum with a straight arm stretched out. He then get those ppl to make the pendulum sway unconciously. Not all of them works. He chose 4 that seem to work, i.e. the pendulum swayed faster than the others. He asked the 4 ppl to put their hands on a round table and it was kind of a spiritual act where ask he speaks, he made the table move on stage. I thought that was quite creepy. It was just like when we were young, we used to play 'tip sin'. And tbh, I am completely skeptical how that works. He then proved the act further by getting a girl put her hands on a smaller square table and making it move around as well!. And this time, he participated, he continue the act further by just holding on to the edge of the table cloth on top of the table, and this time, he made the table flew above the ground!!! Yes, I am not kidding, I saw it with my own eyes! Unless of course, if all is just an illusion.
Back to the Oracle act, he chose a few of the evelopes and each one he chose, he sort of know what the person's name is and what they are thinking. He shouted out a name one by one and keep on saying things about them and only having the audience chosen to say either 'Yes' or 'No' to his statements. It was really amazing how he can tell a girl asked a question of whether she will go to work in Africa or not, that she is quite sporty and plays hockey. Then about a woman who has a Alice name on her head and she admitted she was thinking of Alice, but Alice was a teddy bear etc etc etc. Half way through the act, he even blind folded himself and continue the act. Until a point where he just fell on the ground exhausted. Ok maybe this part is fake :). But it was just too amazing how he can of maybe he did "persuaded" the ppl to agree to his statements.
At the end of the act, he brought out a really big scroll of paper where he kept in a locked box and that box was all the while hanging on top of the stage. He told us that before the show, he had thought of what kind of things will come up in the show and had wrote them down on the big scroll of paper and locked it in the box. When he took it out, he slowly unscroll it, word by word, those things really did appear in the show. For example, the objects the audience written down earlier in the show, the cards which appeared in the card tricks, etc etc.
All in all, it was a great show. Although I think I would enjoy more watching his TV shows. At least he explained how he did it in them. But the live show although unexpected and surprising with the tricks, I left feeling skeptical with a lot of things. Or maybe I am just too curious to uncover his tricks ;).
p.s. Ohya, nearly forgot, remember the £500 and £5000 box? The man guessed it wrong, it was a £500 box. Wonder how he persuaded the man to have guessed the wrong box. Hmm
