Desert Island Tricks
Episodes are uploaded every Friday and are available via all Podcast service providers!
To find out more about the team behind Desert Island Tricks, please visit: www.alakazam.co.uk
Desert Island Tricks
Derren Brown | Part Two
Can moments of failure and vulnerability actually enhance a magic performance? This is something we will explore in Part Two of Derren's episode! We'll delve into ethical boundaries and the emotional depths of magic, including a deeply moving story of a fan seeking a connection with a deceased loved one. Prepare to be captivated by the intricate dynamics of tricks like the Oracle Act and the ESP matchup, where theatrical flair meets audience impact.
Magic isn't just about the tricks; it's about the relationship between the performer and the audience. Hear firsthand how tonal shifts and logistical challenges, like performing on Broadway, can shape a show. Discover cult plot's created by Derren like the "coin in hand," all while understanding the significance of spectators as active participants rather than mere props. We go behind the scenes with anecdotes that shed light on the real magic happening between performer and spectator.
The beauty of magic lies not just in perfection, but in embracing imperfections. Listen to compelling stories of on-stage mishaps, such as a pen lid getting stuck, which transformed into unforgettable moments of authenticity. Uri Geller's simple, yet impactful, act of putting on glasses to inspect a broken watch is another testament to the power of genuine connections. Plus, we'll discuss the highly anticipated books by Ted Karmilovich and Eugene Berger, offering insights and tips for creating memorable performances. Join us for a deep dive into the theatrical and emotional richness of magic with Derren Brown.
A podcast about being an artist from a practical perspective. The series will...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
So we started getting like angry letters about it.
Speaker 1:Not a regular thing, but certainly enough to kind of really pay attention to, to the extent that I then had to change the trick and put in don't take part in this, close your eyes now if you suffer from any form of PTSD. So there we were with a card trick that was causing proper distress to some people, not just being angry, but like you know people, but people shaking in tears, sobbing, just really weird situations that kind of came out of it. So that was fascinating, because I've often had moments like that when I've toured Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible Darren Brown, darren Brown, everybody.
Speaker 1:And our beliefs and our understandings about the world are limited by that perspective, which means we tell ourselves stories. It's yeah, it stayed with me. I think theatrically it was interesting because, as you say, I'm saying I'm making this up, I'm making this up, this is rubbish. So I've got your aunt here her name is Jan, is that right, auntie Jan? And they'd be like yes, and she's saying she's not saying anything. Of course I'm lying to you, but she's saying blah, blah, blah, and it would go back and forth like that and it just kind of occupied this space.
Speaker 1:I think we get rather caught up, particularly as mentalists between you know are you saying it's real or it's not? Are you this or this, like it's a very binary thing and I don't think ultimately your responsibility is to that particular ethical question. I think your responsibility is a theatrical one and actually really early on in the tour I came out at Stage Door and there was a girl there. She said oh, I wonder if you could put me in touch with my grandmother who's passed away. I said, oh God. I said I'm so sorry. I really hoped it's clear from the show that I can't really do any of that stuff. And she went oh, no, no, no, I know you can't do any of that stuff, but I just wondered if you could put me in touch with her, which was interesting thing for someone to say.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a superb trick and it intrigues me where you're going to go now, because that feels, I mean, in terms of the Oracle Act and Carter Box. In recent times those are two of the biggest tricks. When you think Darren Brown, you think of and sorry his live shows as opposed to the TV stuff. You do think Oracle Act and now that Carter Box was so well received by everyone, so yeah, I've got no idea where this is going to go. I'm intrigued to see what's in your sixth position.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was going to go for the ending of Something Wicked this Way Comes, which was the newspaper test. That is then followed by a video showing how I planted this idea throughout the whole show, and I've sort of seen that premise done so many times since. Plus there's already kind of covered the big routines from the shows, and so I decided not to do that and go small again. So I've gone for the ESP matchup trick.
Speaker 1:Years ago I bought the from Davenport, I bought an, an esp deck, and again, this was not a known thing. You could just you know, you could buy your bicycle cards or you could buy esp decks enormous. I think it felt like there were like four mentalists when I started doing uh, this, uh, just a very, uh, I guess, very standard matchup trick. And then, cause I did close up for many years and that was absolutely became the staple thing, and again, like with card at any number, it allows you, I think, once you've got a certain structure in place, to then have all the fun of it all the fun of finding um stuff that really is going to make the a routine like that magical, which laughably get referred to as subtleties um, but I mean it really isn't.
Speaker 1:I mean the subtlety is is the method. That's like the small part of it. I mean 90% of what's going to make the magic work is all the other stuff that you can then bring to it. I've always loved it and I haven't really done it for a while, but I think, if I'm thinking in terms of you know the A-tricks that for the rest of my career, would serve me. It's an easy thing to slip in the pocket and you can really make something like that. Play, play really big. Um, it's, uh, it's great and I I mean I don't know what versions are around nowadays I've seen again lots of, lots of versions of people getting very kind of caught up in mark cards and things and like the most impossible to see marking, all of which is so sort of um, irrelevant to what actually makes the thing magical. As you know, those are all things about the experience for the magician, but in terms of experience for the audience member, um, it's, uh, it's all the other stuff that's going to matter. So I love it and I did it on stage.
Speaker 1:And David Burglass had this really gorgeous ending Not quite to this trick, but he had the match-up trick and I'm talking about. By the way, just in case it's not clear, I'm talking about where you've just got the cards and it's like, okay, I'll think of one, you put down the one I'm thinking of and then I'll put down the one I was thinking of and we'll do it again. So not the plastic thing that you're sliding cards into. But David had a really wonderful ending to that thing, that matchup trick where first of all, you'd show that the cards match, then you'd, when you turn the thing around and the two columns match, then you would show that you predicted that, and then you would point to the picture on the back wall which had been there all along, which was a sort of a drawing of a ship, and there's the, there's the star in the sky and there's the cross at the top of the boat and there's the wavy lines under the ship. And, if you look, and there's a triangle of the but and it's, it's the same order of things and you've sort of been staring at this all along, um. So I used, um.
Speaker 1:I've got a picture like that at home, but I did it on photoshop and actually did like a photograph of some people on a boat, uh, so I could do that. I've never, never used it, not something I could ever go out and perform that because it's a framed photo, but I thought I'd use it. I never did, but it's a nice looking thing, um, uh. But I did use the same uh idea of predicting it in.
Speaker 1:I did the ESP matchup trick with just with the, with the cards in your hand, um, in one of the stage shows and played around with a sort of a predicted order at the end which really I think must have come. Must have come, I think, from David's idea, although it didn't involve a picture or anything. But anyway, yeah, it's a lovely thing and, having done it on stage, it was perfect in this moment for like a sort of an intimate thing on stage rather than everything being big. It's a nice sort of change of texture, a bit like the nail up the nose thing I did as well. So this is quite nice to have these really kind of one on one, sweeter things as well. So, yeah, because I've done that forever, it's probably one of the first tricks I ever did and I never fell out of love with it. So esp, whatever it's called. Again, I don't even know what the name is for it.
Speaker 2:There's probably a lot of names for it now, but that, that one I think, yeah, esp matchup feels, feels, uh, like it is what it is. Um, my question is then so you mentioned david burglass in terms of influence, in terms of so if, if people want to start doing a version of the esp matchup and you were to set them on that path, where would you recommend looking?
Speaker 1:well, I just bought the old pianic deck that I just remember that it was just sort of instructions and stuff at the back and ideas for routines, um, with, I think, magic christian on the front. It was a very 70s looking guy, so to him and his hair I owe that. So yeah, again, it's such a simple idea. So I would bypass all the clever modern ones and just go back to the original Piatnik ESP deck. It's in there.
Speaker 2:Great choice. And that brings us on to the tail end of your eight tricks. So we're now on number seven. So what did you put in your seventh position?
Speaker 1:Number seven. I've put the three again. I'm sorry these are all mine, but it's the stuff I know. So the three card trick that starts the Devil's Picture Book download which, uh, again, was my. So what I used to do, I used to do close-up magic around the tables and if it was the kind of event, uh, where this was appropriate, I would then have my own space afterwards, um, say, after dinner somewhere. I just have a card table, I would. I would just do card stuff, um, uh, and the three card trick was and I think this was it was born out of watching tom mullica, um, one of his videos do a trick where it's three people and it's like you know, pick a card, it spreads the deck out and it's kind of like this lovely, quite sociable way of doing a car trip with three people and him around a table.
Speaker 1:And that felt like a really lovely sort of premise, not that not the premise for the trick, but the, the sort of a situational premise, a bit like. That's why I, like a can, as I said, the premise of it's about your decisions, from the word go. Those are things that appeal to me often, more than what the actual trick is, um, and I think there'll always be a place for although it's it is the magician doing clever things with cards, but of a sort of right, come on, gather around everybody, come and get around, let's do this, pick a card each, and then a really enjoyable interplay and it's a really long trick. It's a series of um of effects of finding the cards, and so that was great because I could play with that over the years that I did it and I just put all of the sort of slight, of handy, magic-y stuff into one long routine, made sure I had a really good ending, and then the rest of my card stuff wasn't really like that, apart from card under box. I used to do a card under box. I suppose that would be another kind of sleight of hand sort of premise. But yeah, that. So it's on the Devil's Picture book. It's long but it's like, and the reason why I'm keeping it is that it it's a really handy go-to thing.
Speaker 1:If you've got some people that want to see a trick, you've got a deck of cards, that's it, and it's almost like an act in itself. So it would stand me well If I was only going to have this small number of tricks to do in the future. I'd'd get a lot of mileage, uh, I think, out of that, and if I needed to fill time as well, it would you know, it would, I think, very practical considerations, but it would, uh, it would also give me that too. So, yeah, my three car trick, not not much of a story around it, but my I'm just.
Speaker 1:As I was thinking about that, I, I was thinking about being at the car table after a gig and I remember very vividly this isn't really selling the trick, having just said that I'd do it, uh, but it was interesting magically a group of people sat there and and two of them were loving it, and this other guy, who was being really nice, was just like. He was like, I don't really sorry, I don't really and they're like no, you can't you, that's the card you picked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I know, but I'm not really following's the card you picked? Yeah, no, I know, but I'm not really following. Well, the card you picked, it's under the whatever, or it's changed to your card. And him being like yeah, I know, sorry, I mean, I don't want to be rude I presume you just, I don't know, did a thing or changed it or put another card there, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So I don't get it, did not get the premise of a, of a magic trick, I guess, but I didn't leave thinking what an idiot. I just left thinking this is all stuff we need to, we need to think about. You know that, you know he, somebody might be sit there, just not really, um, just not really guessing it, like there, there is a, a level at which you know we need to think about some, you know, kind of basic, basic stuff of what is people's experience. I've never, never, forgotten him, um, the guy that just didn't quite understand the whole kind of premise of it because, as mad as it was, that's. You know, it's ultimately my responsibility to bring him in as well, which I clearly didn't well.
Speaker 2:Well, I think some people we can't always cater for everybody's experience of things, and I think sometimes I've certainly had it when I'm performing magic at an event and the same thing happens. Someone just doesn't get it. And it could be the most basic thing of you know, your ring was here and now it's on some keys in my back pocket. They just don't engage in it for whatever reason. Something just doesn't click, and I do think it may be just because when some people are so on their guard constantly that then they're maybe not tuned into the right part of what's happening, because their mind is thinking about, okay, what's that hand doing and where that? Where's that going now and how's he trying to catch me out and what's he trying to do.
Speaker 1:So sometimes I think just get it I I find that when I've been brought up on stage to watch a trick, to take part in a trick, uh, it's only happened like a handful of times in my life, but I think every time I've had no sense of what the effect is, no sense of what's, because you're so sort of like you know the lights and you're seeing the weirdly, seeing the back of a performer and so many other things going on. But I did stow it away as a useful possible half method for something you know maybe the person up on stage is. I mean, it's a shame because you, you know, you want to. Uh, something I talk actually a lot about in the book is a sort of the relationship that you create with the person on stage is so important and not really ever thought about or sort of spoken about generally. That thing, you know, spectator, just being like a warm prop, that's sort of it. That's the end of their role. But actually there is this other interesting thing whereby the sort of relationship that you have with them, whether it's funny and playful or whether it's sort of intimidating or whether you're a showman Someone picks up the phone and gets hypnotized and is whisked backstage and trained when they come out and they're showing this thing that they've learned to do backstage. You know there's all sorts of really interesting things that that relationship can be, which makes a massive difference to the audience's experience of a show.
Speaker 1:If they're just another person that's picking a card or inspecting a thing or, you know, perhaps being the butt of some jokes, I mean it's, you know it's, it's a real shame. You know you've really got to. You're putting a property like a show together you have to think about, you know, texture and and constantly changing tonalities throughout, um, and I think that's a really that's a really big area. That's, uh, that's often missed. So I I put a lot of weight on it, but, yeah, I did. I did sort of think that the back of my mind, maybe there's some mileage in the fact that probably the person on stage, their default, will be not really following anything about what's going on, which, of course, can also make them very suggestible. So that is it is.
Speaker 2:It is helpful well, that's, uh, really a good choice for number seven, but it does lead us onto your last item, which is sad for me because it feels like it's coming to an end already, but also interesting. So what did you put in your final position? Any guesses? Um, I don't know. I've literally wait. Give us a clue. So is it from a show, or is it from a project or book? It's from a show, okay?
Speaker 2:stage in fact I mean, the ending of enigma is phenomenal. But a personal favorite, which might be a surprise, is I. I remember seeing um uh, an evening of wonders and the uh the suit moment where the, the whiteboard comes up and then it's you in the in the suit at the end. Oh, the switch, the gorilla switch. That a personal favorite from being in the audience. And obviously I was young, very young, and it was one of the first of your shows I'd seen, so that moment was just mind blown. I you just can't see it coming so that's very nice to hear.
Speaker 1:Well, we did that in the broadway show as well, because we basically just took the best bits from, um, what we thought were the best bits from all the shows and put them in. Put them in that, uh. So, yeah, that was. That was really really good fun and, interestingly, um, when you get into the into broadway, there's a whole mad thing about unions. So you know, if you do a show in the west end, there's just like six people involved and everyone just mucks in and makes this thing work. It's no exaggeration to say that there's you might have 150 people involved in the Broadway version and they've all got very specific jobs to press this one button and, uh, it's a massive deal if anybody, um, uh, sort of treads over the line of someone else's job. So even like when we were rehearsing things and, um, you know I'd pick up a prop during the trick and put it back down again obviously not exactly the same place I picked it up and then we'd go and rehearse it again. The natural thing because I've just stood there would be to move that prop back, and you know, three inches to the left where it was, and you know people would rush out with disclaimer forms and, uh, you know someone else's job to move that, not mine, because that's that's someone. You know it's a big union problem anyway. So for the gorilla switch obviously, as you can imagine, somewhere in the mix of all that I'm getting changed very quickly into into a gorilla suit, and that's always been just like our guys, our backstage guys, whoever isn't working, their job at that point is to get me into a suit and if there's like two or three people doing that, I can do it really quickly. And on broadway. They weren't allowed to touch the suit because it was the um costume wardrobe assistants I don't know her actual role who was lovely and she was very apologetic about it, but she couldn't let anybody else touch it. So because of that, I only had one person to get into this suit, to help me into the suit, which meant it couldn't happen very quickly. So actually the show had to change and the effect wasn't as good and we had to rewrite this whole bit because no one else was allowed to touch the suit. So the actual me changing into it, uh, to you know, to three times longer than it should anyway. Yeah, that was a, that was a mad thing.
Speaker 1:No, my final choice is coin in hand, uh, which? Um, I always thought actually that I'd sort of not I, but we as a team had invented which may or may not be the case, because charles Gauke had a similar plot around at the same time and I honestly have no idea which one came first. But I remember we were working on I think it was Mind Control 2. Richard McDougall, I think, was part of that creative team and we wanted to find something which has also become a recurring thing with a lot of my material is something that feels like a game that you've played for years. So it just feels like a thing. So guessing, guessing which hand the coins in that that old thing, um and uh, so, and I did it on them, right and peer I remember, but it was it, it was a really immediately. I mean it obviously isn't a game that anyone's played before. It's not a real thing, not really, but it's just about feels like it might be. So it has since then become.
Speaker 1:It was a very good opener to the first show that I did, derren Brown Live. It's how I open my corporate act. I very rarely do any corporate acts, but when I do it's just a great come out. Everyone, everybody stand up and let's play this game. And now, of course, everybody does it and everyone stole it and I presume everyone uses it as their open up. No idea, but so you know, it may not be much of a surprise to say it, but it is a really fun opening trick and over the years I have played with so many different ways of doing it. There was even a point that when it did become popular and there were, like you know, clever, clever ways of doing it, using special gizmos, that was great. I could use those and have. Essentially, I was outsourcing my methods to other people that would make them. I could get them a lot cheaper than if I was going to make them myself. Um, so I've gone through all sorts of all sorts of ways of doing it and, um, they've sort of settled on something which I think I can confidently say uh, no one else is doing and uh, and that was, but it's, it's something I'd never not do. I think between that and the Oracle, uh, that would give me an act, that would give me a, uh, that would give me a show and uh, I'd be mad to to lose it. Um, I think it's. It's also been a fun one to play with, getting it wrong and um, because again it's like the what.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to get back to the book again, but these are all things because I've thought about them a lot. They're all things that are in the book, but I uh, a thing that's important to me is I think you want to see, as an audience member going to a show of any sort, whether you're seeing an actor or a dancer or a singer or a magician. You want to connect with a human being. You want to. That's really what it's about, and the trouble with magic is that everything you're doing is superhuman. So it really gets in the way of that, and it gets in the way of great drama and affecting people the most, because if they want to connect with a human and you're superhuman, then where are you sort of struggling? Where does that come into it? Metella's spoken a lot about this. That magic's very bad drama because magicians are god figures and if you can click your fingers and make anything happen, then there is no drama and what we like dramatically are heroes, and those are people that struggle or they're aiming for something, but maybe end up somewhere different from where they thought they were heading to and so on. Um, and I think these are all things to somehow think about and incorporate, because because, irrespective of the craft that we're presenting, we're wanting to surprise and engage and entertain and take people on some sort of journey, and I think it's just very hard to do that if just time and time again, you're Mr Amazing or Mrs Amazing or Ms Amazing or just an amazing person.
Speaker 1:So I remember one show I did the pen lid got stuck on them. I had a marker those big fat markers we love to use and the pen lid wouldn't come off. And it just would not come off. And I can hear them scurrying around backstage trying to find a replacement pen and they couldn't. And it just happened to be reviewed that night and the reviewer made I think he maybe thought I did it on purpose, but just the most human aspect in the show for him was when we couldn't get the lid off this pen. I've since used it as a method because it's a very engaging moment and no one's thinking about anything else if you can't get the lid off a pen. And I remember watching Uri Geller do a show in Cardiff and for a number of reasons I sort of didn't really love the show.
Speaker 1:But a moment I really loved was when he had to put his glasses on to look at a broken watch that someone had brought up, and it was such a lovely human moment and I think, um, whatever that is, however you find it, whatever sort of vulnerability that that is, um, uh, because there's magicians struggle in what you know like a escapologist struggles to escape, but that's not real, that's not like real life. Struggling that's, that's a pretend, theatrical struggling, but actual, actually watching a human being trying to do something that's difficult is so important and actually I think mentalism can lend itself to that. There's no reason my magic shouldn't, but I think, I think mentalism can and should. I think it's just not always done very, very well. But anyway, all of that is to say that failure is is so important and you know, if I've, if I've done a, if I've done a show and everything's gone too well, I will fail on purpose. I mean, you have to choose your moments. But or if I'm, you know, if I'm trying to, if I'm trying to read something from somebody and it's a really tense moment and somebody sneezes and the audience laughs, it makes no sense for me to then go back and get the information I was trying to get. So maybe I'll just have to let it go that night, even though maybe I know what it is, but I'll have to let it go and sort of sorry, that was an unfortunate moment, not your fault. Make a joke about it. But then it's a real thing. You know you couldn't get it that night because someone sneezed. Why wouldn't that make me fail? And all of that's so much more interesting In Guess who, which was one of the, or Guess Whom, which is one of the tricks in an early show.
Speaker 1:An early show, uh, get four people up. And I think this was a note from andy nyman who said, oh, um, I think maybe one night, maybe I'd send somebody back. There was for some reason or maybe he just said it anyway, but he basically said send someone back every night. It's so interesting when you do that it's not going to work with you and, more than anything else, I have people, um, bring that up.
Speaker 1:Years later, I came up on stage. You asked me to sit back down again. Why was that? What was it about me that you just took one look and knew it wasn't, wasn't going to work with me or people saying, the night you did, I saw a guy and he came up and you could tell immediately, immediately, it wasn't going to work, that you send him back. Um, all that stuff, all that stuff is so is so interesting. It has nothing to do with the tricks, um, they're just human moments of difficulty or whatever. So, yeah, so failing with a coin in hand, really interesting. Failing and having to give give the money that you've bet on it, uh, really interesting.
Speaker 1:And so that question of it's going to fail anyway, like you've got, whatever method you're using for it, it's going to go wrong at some point. So what? You know, what do you do with something like that if it goes wrong? Well, you don't want to just be a bitch about it and or sort of have to backtrack and do all those horrible things that we do and we don't know what to do. So, having a an elegant way out of it that actually serves the show and doesn't feel like an embarrassment, to the point that you might choose to do it, sometimes on purpose.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I think it's interesting. Maybe not with an opening routine necessarily, like maybe the opening routine you want to be kind of nice and slick, but I think these are important things to think about and I've certainly played with failure in that routine to see how it goes down, and I think it's. I think it's, I think it's great, I mean it's, it's. You're starting a show with this thing clearly being real and that thing of the night we were in it didn't work and he lost 50 quid or whatever is really, you know, is really interesting, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, it sort of lends itself to something that you said earlier as well, when you mentioned and I know a lot of musical theatre has moments like this in which there's like a moment where you corpse and you almost break character and that's the night that Darren started laughing, and it feels like a really human moment that everyone in the theatre is having that experience on that one night at that time and you've seen a lot of musical theatre in which case it's excruciating Yes's, all of them.
Speaker 1:It's just awful. It's one of that, andy, and my running, running, uh jokes about that. The bad, the bad corpse in that. But yes, but yeah, I, I get your point. Yeah, no, it is. It is important, um, and and also, when things do go wrong and people think it's part of the show anyway, it's just anything that brings people suddenly to a very present moment and snaps them out. One of the nicest things I've heard was from Jeremy Dyson, who co-wrote Ghost Stories and co-directed that and wrote, of course, league of Gentlemen and works with Andy a lot. So it's something that Andy told me that Jeremy had said, which is to do the whole show.
Speaker 1:Imagining that you've got someone in the audience and they're just reaching for their hat and coat under the seat to leave. They're just, and you've got to keep them in their seat. It's like they're just trying to, they're just about to sneak out, they're going to grab their stuff and go. What do you do? That makes them okay, sit back for a bit and watch for a little bit, a little bit longer. So really, um, I think it's a really good. It's a really good image because it makes you keep things changing and different and surprising, and even if it's just your tonality, just your voice changing, you know, um, uh, yeah, keep, keep that guy in his, in his seat well, it's a great last choice and I I think you're right.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people attribute to which hand to you and I actually quite liked you had a version. I guess it's not quite a which hand, but you had a thing, I think again, it was on a pier with a ring in a box and it was just a. It was basically like a which hand thing and they had to guess which one it's in which hand thing and they had to guess which one it's in. And that was also a lovely way just to take a 50 50 plot and make it feel like it was interesting and intriguing I love those, I love, love, love those simple plots, if it's one of these two things, one of these three things.
Speaker 1:And, um, I think maybe the first one I did of those was in the first mind control show and it was envelopes with um money in each money. In one of them it was like um, I'm trying to remember the plot, it was like there's 50 quid in one and not in the other, something like that, and it went up to 500 and went up to that and um, andrew o'connor remembers it because I just kept, I just kept going with it and they were like no stop, stop, because you know, I just, I just, I kept going, um, uh, and kept winning, and that was that was.
Speaker 1:That was the first time. I didn't like a real taste for it after that. I really, really enjoy the kind of simple thing is it this or that? No, okay, we'll do it again, but this time we'll okay. Is it this or that? No, okay. It's where all the smugness can come. Of course, it's like you're just like, yeah, no, you're stupid, I'm clever. That is unfortunately the um, the subject. So, uh, it's not ideal from that point of view, but it's a very um, it's a really fun thing for as a premise and it's, you know, sort of thing that served me, served me well over the years well, I was just going to say, even throughout, when you think about a lot of your shows, you have um shoe in a box, or where is darren shoe, sorry?
Speaker 2:um, you have the money at the box, uh, in the two boxes at the front, um, where they have. And I mean andy has a great effect on one of his down now it's a download and but on get an iron with just two chairs and there were two envelopes and he says you know, if you come down this way and and the whole thing is, you will sit here, you will sit in the other chair. But those 50, 50 plots you're always so you and your team are so good at coming up with ways to make them so much more interesting and intriguing when really it's just a 50, 50 it's a's a 50-50,.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, obviously they suffer from oh, go on, do it again, do it again. Okay, do it again. So it needs that. But it can work very well as a way into something. So I was on the Seth Meyers late night show whatever it is in the States and I was doing marketing stuff for the Broadway show, and the first round of that was show whatever it is in the states and I was doing, um, marketing stuff for the broadway show and the first round of that was here are two colors, one green, one yellow.
Speaker 1:I've always loved like that sort of colored cards in mentalism, slightly kind of 70s, um, just really low, low tech stuff. So colored cards, choose one or the other, and and then he chooses one. On the back it says you'll choose this one, which of course feels like a gag. On the other one it says but not this one. Um, uh, as then way into a bigger thing, so you need to take it.
Speaker 1:They don't see it very well on their own, because then you know you want to show okay, let me do that again, show it to me again. So, indeed, so that went into something else. So the the only other thing is how you then make it bigger and bigger and introduce so Stephen Merchant as well. There was a routine in one of the TV shows with him choosing yes or no. Again, I think I've seen that trick around a bit in the shops. So yeah, it's, it's and it's just. It's really good fun because again you've got the trick is giving you the framework, and then after that it's all the kind of the interpersonal situation that you create out of it.
Speaker 2:But that does bring us on to your two curveball items. So obviously you've had eight items overall, but now we're going to get really difficult because you're only allowed to have one of each. So what was the book that you took with you to your island?
Speaker 1:Right. Well, my first thought was the Carter Any Number book, but actually I have settled for a book that doesn't exist quite yet. I think it's been almost written and they're having trouble getting it out. But I'm looking forward to this very much and it's I don't know what it's called, but it's going to be the work of a mentalist called Ted Karmilovich, who you may or may not have heard of Karmilovich with a K, and years ago, when I was reading Magic magazine in the sort of the bound volumes of that, it was a huge amount of material. And then after a while I was just skimming through looking for Ted's routines that he had contributed to it and they were all awesome. So I mean, I don't know if you know, it's something that I've done on stage, so that may mean that others are too, so you might have come across it.
Speaker 1:But it's an effect where you would say I'm going to write down a number. This would be one way of doing it. I'm going to write down a number and I just want to see if anybody can get close to it. Who's feeling psychic? What do you think? It is okay, you lady there, okay, gentleman there, okay. Well, actually you were closest. You were actually off by one, but uh, what's your name? So this person comes down and they can open a prediction and it says the person that will get closest to this number will be, and it's a description of the woman, like where she's going to be sad, what she looks like, what she's, and they'll be off by one um, and it's the most in, like all the most satisfying magic. It's just such a simple little shift, a little mental shift in method that creates this much bigger, more interesting question and set of questions than just you know what the trick would normally be, which is how did he know what number they were thinking of? Number they were thinking of um, and so that's ted's, as as are a number, and anything he comes up with is just, uh, he was.
Speaker 1:I suppose I should, I saw him do, I saw him do, uh, a wonderful. I shouldn't, I shouldn't say it was at a convention, but I think everything that happens, it was at the pea, which is a think, everything that happens. It was at the PEA, which is a member Paper Exchangers Anonymous, the Psychic Entertainers Association in America, and he did a couple of things there that were gorgeous. Anyway, I shouldn't say but so I'm really looking forward to this book coming out. I wrote a little blurb for it on the back and that was a long time ago and it hasn't arrived yet, which is making it even more enticing. But I think he's wonderful and a real giant in that world, but not somebody that the current couple of mentalists would have ever heard of, I'm sure. So it's that.
Speaker 1:It doesn't exist yet and I don't know what it's called, but it's Ted Kamilovich's book. He's collected works or whatever they're going to call it. That will keep me going for a little while. I'll definitely read that, and the last book that I read actually was Eugene Berger's late posthumous book, which I started and was really enjoying, and then we moved house and stuff and I've since. I need to get back to it. It's in storage but I very, very rarely read magic books nowadays, but Burglass, eugene's the only two that I read over the last probably 20 years, but Ted's one I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great. It's nice to have something that's not out yet that we can sort of keep our eyes out for. So 100%. And Eugene's book we've had before and certainly in the beginning of that book we've spoken about it on the podcast before. There's a really interesting moment where Eugene has written a letter knowing that when you're reading it he's going to have passed on. So he's, he's talking to you from the afterlife, which, again, is this really weird moment. When you're reading it, knowing that he was right in it, knowing that he was going to be passed on, it's all a bit um, crazy, but amazing at the same time. It's a lovely way to look back and feel like he's still talking to you, which was lovely. But it does bring us on to the real curveball item, your non-magic item that you use for magic. So I'm always interested where this one's going to go. We've had nothing too uh scandalous so far. So what are you going to go for?
Speaker 1:it was really important to me to end this list with something dull, so I took this question to mean again. I can only do this few tricks. The rest of my career I'm out doing those things as an act. What non-magical item can I not be without? And a thing that I cannot tour without, or a thing that I can't not do when I'm touring, is write. So I spend my days writing and I wrote notes from a fellow traveler during the two years of doing Showman and it's largely a journal of that. But with previous shows I've written, I wrote Happy and I think all well, certainly every year, I think, when I've toured I've been writing. So I don't think I could do the tour without that.
Speaker 1:And it's the most wonderful sort of rhythm, of sort of like sitting in a coffee shop typing away during the day and then going out and doing a show in the evening. It's very bad for your posture, so that's why I have to go and see physios and things, because you're going from hunched like that to ta-da and then you hurt yourself as you get older. So it's my laptop, I'm afraid. I'm afraid I cannot think of a worst answer, but I really struggle to think of what else really, what things I use in magic performances? Really nothing came to mind. It was a very tricky one to answer, but I knew the honest thing was I couldn't imagine being without is something that would allow me to write, and that's always the other half of the touring experience to me. Thing was, I couldn't imagine being without is something that would allow me to write, and that's always been the other half of the tour experience to me. So I'm so sorry to finish on that, but I'm afraid that is God's honest answer.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's a brilliant thing to have put down and it's certainly something that I think, after reading your book and previous books as well. I think that people will be very happy with that, I think even on a desert island. I'm sure you have lots of interesting things to put forward to the community.
Speaker 1:Well thank you. Thank you. It's been a really, really interesting thing to think through. It's also lovely because I haven't done close up for so long. Um, I, every now and then something will make me want to want to go back to it, and it's doing this has rekindled an affection, uh, for those, particularly for those old um close-up things that I don't really don't really do anymore, and it's it's kind of uh, it's something lovely about these things that just feel like they don't really do anymore and it's it's kind of uh, it's something lovely about these things that just feel like they're sort of in your blood and have been, have been, for a while. That makes me, uh, makes me miss it too.
Speaker 2:So thank you well, thank you for giving us your time, but if people want to find out more about you, what's coming up? I'm sure you've got big things in in the pipeline, including your book, obviously. If people want to find out how to get the book, where can they go to?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm selling it privately at the moment, so I'm selling it on my website. I've taken some time out after showman so I've been mainly painting and I sell prints of my painting on my site as well and this book. So we've just launched the second printing of it. The first one sold out really quickly and I think it was hard for us to keep up with the demand. So we've got more of an infrastructure this time. So really it's that, other than I'm I'm probably taking some time out. I've got a podcast that I do and we start to think about another show. Another tour would be um, but that would all be for um, that would all be for next year. Nothing, uh, nothing. Anytime soon that I could I can think of. I'm just getting my head around what the new book will be, which I'll be doing, yeah, which I'll be probably writing next year.
Speaker 2:Oh, I feel like that's a little exclusive, that there's going to be a new one coming out. That's good. Yeah, I don't think this will be a magician's one.
Speaker 1:I think I kind of put everything I could into Notes from a Fellow Traveller. It is big, I mean you, you know it's a, it's a, it's a big, it's a big book. But I put, I put everything in that, um, and I think I mean it was really. I mean it's huge fun and it's really fun writing a book from a show that you're kind of doing and not having to kind of do a lot of research about other stuff, which is normally what happens. I normally have a big suitcase of books with me, um, and it was very nice to just um have a lot of research about other stuff, which is normally what happens. I normally have a big suitcase of books with me and it was very nice to just have this sort of organic experience. And if things were going wrong in the show, I'd be like, ah, this would be interesting to put in the book tomorrow. Or I'd be writing stuff and working things out, finding a language for ideas, because I was writing about them during the day, and then that would help with the show in the evening, with the show in the evening. So it was a very it's, it was a really, it was a really lovely thing, and because it was such a long show as well, I was going through, like you know, forgetting my lines and stuff like that and that card to box trick we were talking about, having done it like literally hundreds and hundreds of times, night after night.
Speaker 1:Really. That's when you start to forget your lines and stuff right, when something becomes just rote, when you just you step out of the present and you just you're just repeating something rather than recreating it from night to night. And and this happened, I think I had a bit of a cough as well and I'd had some like cough medicine and maybe that slightly set me off, killed slightly, but two or three times I would get to the end of that trick and I realized I hadn't done any of the method. I there was, the card was still going to be under the guy's hand, I hadn't done the stuff I needed to do to make that trick work from a mechanical magic method point of view, and I just had to sort of improvise some way out of it and that's kind of that. Might not it might not be something that people go through much because they may not be doing as many shows.
Speaker 1:I was doing one after another, after another, but like how you, how you find your way through those kind of situations, um is uh is important, and also just how they affect doesn't matter how often you do a show, whether you're doing it for 12 people above a pub or 3,000 people in a big theatre. It's the same considerations, the same experiences and the same things that are important to get right and I think even more important if you're putting a small show together that are important to get right. And I think even more important in a if you're doing, if you're putting a small show together, because I think there's a thing that you don't see as a performer and it's that moment in the audience, before the show starts, as you know, the lights are maybe going down, and maybe even before that, when you just sat there and there's like an empty stage, maybe there's a chair or a microphone or something, and Maybe there's a chair or a microphone or something, and it's filled with this potential. And I remember when I used to watch magic gala shows, I remember that feeling.
Speaker 1:A lot in between, an actor would come, do their thing and go and maybe you're like, okay, they were all right, and then again there's the mic, the empty stage and you're waiting for the next one and there's a real sense of like, oh, wow, who's going to come out, what's it going to be? What's it going to be like? And more often than not your anticipation of it isn't quite met by the human reality of whoever comes out like but. But then you can tell in a matter of seconds if they come out and they've, they've got it like you immediately feel comfortable with them. Someone else might come out and you're just like, oh, you're kind of cringing, but just the, that bristling feeling of um potential and how it's met or not met in those first few seconds, all that stuff I find so exciting.
Speaker 1:So, actually doing a little show above a pub or wherever, for a small number of people, I think, actually that feeling is uh, intensified because everybody feels much more sort of you know, know, visible, and it feels more exclusive.
Speaker 1:And you know, there's a level of that feeling which you might not get if you're sat at the back of, you know, a couple of thousand people in a big theatre. And yet again, it sort of gets missed because as a performer, you might just be thinking about the tricks, which is understandable, but they're really only a part of this experience that you're you're giving people, which has started before you before you step out on stage. So I think, uh, I think this is all the really important stuff and it doesn't really get particularly spoken about that much, or sometimes it gets spoken about you don't really trust the experience of the people that are writing it, so I hope at least I've got you know 20 years of whatever touring under my belt that it made it feel like these are things that are just worth passing on and people can, you know, make use of it as they wish.
Speaker 2:It's a phenomenal book. It is one that everyone should really have, especially, you know, if you're someone who wants to start putting on a larger show. There are things and considerations in that book that very few people are ever going to think about before they step into that arena. And I will also just say a separate book of yours, which I loved, was Happy and subsequently A Little Bit Happier. I think it was either A Little Bit Happier or A Little Bit Happier, which was like the shortened version of it, but it's still great nonetheless.
Speaker 2:But that was a really interesting book as well, and that was sort of, for those who don't know about it, it's sort of your stoic view of happiness and life and going forward, and I know a lot of magicians will probably get an awful lot from that book as well. So I know it's not a magic book and it's not a performance book, but I really do think it's another one that people should be checking out of yours as well, because it was a great book. It was really interesting and it really makes you think about things from a completely different perspective. It's really good.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. Thank you very much indeed and thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming along and make sure you pick up Darren's book. But with that being said, we will let Darren go now because we've had him for a very, very long time. So thank you again, darren. It's been amazing to hear your uh choice of ultimate tricks that you would have for forever and ever.
Speaker 1:Thank you, lots of love and uh see you again.
Speaker 2:Bye but, with that being said, thank you all, and we will hear from you again next week on another episode of desert island tricks. Goodbye, desert.
Speaker 3:Island Tricks. Goodbye, hello, guys. I'm here to talk to you about alakazam unlimited. This is the best streaming platform in the world, I'm telling you now. With alakazam unlimited, you get access to over 150 magic routines this is video performances and explanations. We have card magic, coin magic, kids, magic rope, magic, mentalism, stage parlor, impromptu. We've got you covered. All of this for the low price of just £4.99 a month, and you can cancel at any time. Perfect if you've got commitment issues. Yes, I'm talking to you, guys. You are going to absolutely love it. If you haven't joined the platform already, what the heck are you doing? Alakazam Unlimited is a streaming platform that you need to be a part of. Not only that, there is also exclusive content only available on the platform. Check it out now. Alakazamcouk Cheers.