Derren Brown - Something Wicked This Way Comes Tour
21st April 2005 - Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham

Before I start my review I'd like you to do something for me. I'll explain why later.

· Think of: a yellow flower, a jungle animal and a very simple shape. Go with your instincts. The first thing that comes into your mind and most importantly, DON'T CHANGE IT.
· Leave a comment to this review with what you've thought of. Before you read the rest of the review.
· As you're reading this review think very hard about those three things.

Like I said I'll explain why later.

If you've seen Derren Brown's Mind Control on Channel 4 or E4 you'll have an idea of how the night is going to run. If you haven't, let me explain. Derren is a psychological illusionist. He uses a mixture of magic, misdirection, psychology and showmanship to pull off his 'tricks'. It's all very, very clever and you don't know how he does it.

--Act 1--
Derren opened by saying that he believes that his audience is split into the following: 89% of you have seen at least half a dozen of his programmes; the other 11% have been dragged along by boyfriends/girlfriends/mates. Out of his audience, 72% will be in Channel 4's demographic of 18-35 years of age and own large DVD collections (some of which are still in the original wrapping). So far so true.

On the last tour Derren used a Frisbee thrown around the audience to pick people out. In the interests of fairness he did the same again this tour. Only this time it was a monkey in a yellow raincoat.

The monkey was caught by Cat, who was brought up on stage and made to swap her ring for chained and padlocked briefcase. She had to bring it back at the end of the show and had the interval to try and crack the combination of the padlock.

The first half was made up of the types of tricks that are shown in Mind Control. Like guessing liars from their body language for example. Or making people chose an animal or being able to count buttons from one look.

The first Act finished with a warning that some viewers may find the second Act distressing.

--Act 2--
As in his first tour, the second half was much darker and also quite distressing. You know it's not going to be pleasant when the stage crew bring out a huge tarpaulin and Derren asks the audience if there is a doctor in the house.

Derren explained that on the whole he uses the techniques he's learnt on other people. However, he can use the same techniques on himself (but not in a "whooooooooo, you want a big cup of coffee" way). Oh no.

It was much more gruesome.

Derren was obsessed by a 1930's performer who was able to control the flow of blood to his brain and in doing so was able to control the pain he felt. He used to demonstrate his 'powers' by walking over a path of broken glass (can you see where it is going yet?). I'm not going to give away how he gets into this state of mind, or even if he does it. Suffice to say, it's not something they could ever show on TV.

Next he showed us a little film full of subliminal messages. (For legal reasons he had to tell us this). He put out an envelope on the mic stand so we could see he wasn't tampering with it and said that as the film finished four members of the audience would have a compulsion to come down to the stage. One of the four was in the dress circle and as soon as the film finished he was gone, ducking under a railing and running full tilt down the stairs.

The four 'volunteers' had to come on stage choose an envelope from a group of five (that was hidden behind a screen the audience (and Derren) couldn't see behind and sit in a chair. Derren then read out the contents of the envelope, a 2-sides piece of A4 in which he explained that there would be one male and three females (which he got wriong it was actually one female and 3 males); that they would all be sitting on the chairs in a certain order (correct) and that they'd all have picked a certain coloured envelope (also correct). The last envelope left over would be blue (correct). Derren then got them to tell the audience their seat numbers and got them to open their coloured envelopes.

The seat numbers on the paper inside matched the 'volunteers' numbers.

Very, very clever.

--it's all very inevitable--

Derren's finale was inevitable. He said so himself as he placed another envelope on the stage that everyone could see. He brought Cat with the briefcase back on stage. Threw some of that day's newspapers out into the audience to randomly choose some volunteers. Got Cat to pick out one of the newspaper holders who then picked another one, who had a copy of the Daily Mail. Cat then had to pick out a headline the Derren was reading out. The page number of the headline was "13". The newspaper holder had to pull out that page, rip it up and bring it to the stage. Derren then got Cat to give him a number between one and 10 amd counted off the ripped off bits of paper until he got to the fourth one.

He then asked cat to pick a word off that little scrap of paper. She chose 'immortalised'. Derren opened up the envelope in full view of everyone and pulled out a banner which spelt out 'Immortalised'.

Amazing.

But it got better. Derren unlocked the briefcase that Cat had been looking after and in it was a copy of that days Daily Mail. He got Cat to open it to page 13 and read out the word circled on that page. It was 'immortalised'.

If you don't want to know how he did all the subliminal stuff and you want to be surprised when you go to see him, look away now.

--

He's a cheeky one. The entire show was geared up with subliminal messages right from the start. If you've seen the first episode of the new series of Mind Control, you may have seen Simon Pegg being 'Derrened' into wanting a BMX bike. Well he did the exact same thing to the 1,400 of us in the theatre.

The stage crew had been filming the entire show from the wings and edited together a little film of the points in the show where he placed subliminal messages. For example: "it's not *daily* I hammer a *number 13* nail into my head," or "Think of the first *mail* crush you had when you were younger". He even got in 'immortalised' a couple of times too. There was even stuff in the film he got us to watch. I definitely saw the Daily Mail logo. You hear these little things and then forget them straight away. But they're still floating round your subconscious.

--

I did not at any point want to give him my jewellery or my purse. Thank God. And I've not been left with any strange compulsions (I don't think). Although I do have an urge to stroke his goatee…

--My Verdict-
I loved every moment of the show. (I'm fairly sure Derren isn't making me say that, but you can never be too sure). The tour is still running and you can see which dates are still available by visiting his website (a link a the bottom of the review). A very entertaining (and slightly squeamish) evening was had by all.

If you're interested in how he does what he does you'll be slightly disappointed that he doesn't explain everything. (A man has to keep some mystique after all), but it doesn't spoil your enjoyment and gives you a chance to sit in the pub afterwards and try to work out how he does it.

To finish off lets go back to my first paragraph. I asked you to think of a yellow flower, a jungle animal and a shape. And you were to think about it really hard throughout the review. You did? Good.

You were thinking of:
A Daffodil
A Lion
A Square.

Problem is, lions don't live in jungles….

Derren Links:
www.derrenbrown.co.uk - Official website
www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/M/mindcontrol/ - Channel 4 site