Desert Island Tricks
Each week we invite one of the biggest guests in the world of magic to maroon themselves on a desert island. They are allowed to take with them 8 tricks, 1 book, 1 banishment and 1 non magic item that they use for magic! We discuss their 'can't live without' lists and why those items were chosen.
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: Revisited
Did you know only one third of people who have listened to Derren Brown’s first episode have actually listened to his second half?
We’ve stitched Derren Brown’s most-listened-to conversation into one seamless, ad-free cut and let the craft speak. Across two years of touring, decades of creating, and countless experiments with audience psychology, Derren lays out eight pieces that still earn their place on stage and why they matter: Card At Any Number that puts agency first, a watch stolen and revealed in a sock, a key routine that pays off at your front door, and the Oracle Q&A that proves presence beats method.
We dive into the showstopper card-to-box sequence that made entire theatres miss a moment in time, then relive it on screen. Derren shares how he designed content warnings that protected vulnerable audience members without blunting the effect, and why responsible mentalism starts long before showtime. He also revisits an ESP match-up that scales beautifully, a three-card table routine that functions as an act-in-a-pocket, and coin-in-hand as the perfect opener because it feels like a game you’ve played forever. Threaded through it all: improvisation, pacing, tone, and a serious embrace of failure as a tool for making performances human.
Along the way, you’ll hear practical insights on stagecraft, participant care, and scripting; why content beats cleverness; how to build moments that breathe beyond the trick; and how writing during a tour sharpens a show. Derren’s book, Notes from a Fellow Traveller, surfaces as a field guide to touring and performance ethics, while he teases a long-awaited mentalism release from Ted Karmilovich that has everyone excited.
Stream this special re-release, share it with a friend, and tell us: which of Derren’s eight would make your forever list? If the conversation sparked ideas, subscribe, leave a review, and join us next week for more Desert Island Tricks.
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. Now, we've got a bit of a special this week because we are approaching the end of our second year. That's right, we are fast approaching the end of year two of Desert Island Tricks, which is unreal. To think that this has now been going for two years absolutely blows my mind. And we've had so many incredible guests on, uh, we've had so many great lists, and we've got more to come in the future, so stay tuned. But we often get asked what is our most listened to uh episode. The answer, of course, is going to be Darren Brown. But with Derren Brown's episode, the really interesting thing is in streaming, as in podcast platforms and on YouTube, only a third of listeners have actually heard the second half of the interview, which we find bizarre. And we've tried to think about why this could be, but we think it could be that we just put it on two separate episodes, and maybe people weren't aware that there were two halves of it. Maybe they thought it was just the same thing repeated. And I think that's such a shame because it was such a great talk, and it's one that I often go back to. I've listened to both parts several times over over the past year and a half, and it's been such an amazing episode to listen back to. So what we decided to do as a little treat, as we're coming to the end of season two, is to take both halves of the Darren Brown episode, push them together, and take the ads out. That means you have the opportunity to listen to the whole thing all the way through without interruptions and just enjoy it all. Because I know that I really enjoyed listening back to it and listening to those stories again, and then maybe, just maybe, we will have the same amount of people that have heard the first half and then get to hear the second half because the second half is just as phenomenal. So, just as a special treat, here is Darren Brown's episode in its entirety, or both halves beginning and end without interruptions, just for you guys to listen to. Please listen back to this because it was such a joy and honour to record. And of course, we will be back next week with another episode of Desert Island Tricks. But for now, enjoy Darren Brown. It's somebody that I mean, again, you guys have seen the title at this point. Um, and you'll notice that this is the first videoed one that we have done. Uh, we may do more video ones in the future. But today's guest is uh I I really can't introduce him. So I all I can tell you is my thoughts about this person because I think that's just the nicest way to go. Um, so this particular person that we have on today was someone who's actually from my home area. So when I was 11 and 12, and I was I I come from Croydon originally, don't judge me, everyone. Um so I'm from Croydon originally. I remember being in year, it must have been year seven, year eight, and seeing all of the bus stops with uh this guy who's gonna do this Russian roulette thing. And I remember very young watching this Russian roulette thing live and being absolutely on the edge of my seat. Uh probably shouldn't have been watching it that young, let's all be honest, but I'm glad that I did because from that day forward I was a huge fan of today's guest. Um, so much so uh I've think I've seen pretty much all of the live shows. Um, I've tried to collect as much. Obviously, growing up seeing his international lecture, which was just superb. Um, and yeah, I think that my story is probably very similar to lots of people listening to this podcast and watching this podcast. I think the impact that he's had on our industry and on a lot of people as individuals is probably more profound than he uh would like to think. So, with that being said, uh that's my introduction. But today's guest is the wonderful Mr. Darren Brown. Lovely to have you, Darren.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much. That was very nice. I really like um how you said that you you come from Croydon originally. Every everyone says everyone puts the originally on the end uh of Croydon, like they want to distance themselves from it. I I don't live there anymore. I'm not uh I was there for a moment in my youth. Um, it has blossomed into non-entity since I um since I was last there, but I'm really I'm really fond of Croydon and Pearlie, where I uh actually kind of was, you know, actually living just on the outskirts.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm really interested to see what you're gonna say, as I'm sure most listeners hear, because obviously your roots coming into our industry wasn't necessarily mentalism per se. Uh, you were at one point known for your card magic, uh in particular smoke, um, which was just fantastic, but uh you sort of then went on to some more of the mentalism and the hypnosis, and that's what you sort of become known for. So I'm not sure. I think there's gonna be some card, some card stuff on there.
SPEAKER_00:There is actually. This is a really interesting um thing to think about. Um, first of all, because I mean the brief I had, I that these are tricks of the desert island. I mean, I understand if it's records to listen to, records. I'm an old man. Um, music to listen to, but uh I did think how I mean you must have had this conversation with a number of your guests, but how I who am I performing? You know, this is I'm on a desert island. There's I'm just presumably just doing these for myself, and there's no one actually experiencing any magic. Although that hasn't stopped me in the past, I have to say. I'll be fairly standard. Um, but uh, and then I read further down the brief, and um uh it said, no, these are tricks that you you it's not so much about performing them on the island, uh, it's that you can only perform these tricks uh for the rest of your career. And that made more sense. Then I thought that was actually really uh a really interesting thing to ponder. And then you made me feel really bad just before we started talking because you said that um Preston uh Nyman, who's one of the best people in the world, uh had chosen some tenure tricks. A, of course, as genius and brilliant as he is, and B, of course, I thought, oh, right, you're not really supposed to choose your own tricks. Uh how how much you know more generous and how much nicer to um not choose your own tricks. I've chosen all my own tricks apart from one, because I took that to mean you can only perform the you know from your from your repertoire for the rest of your life. So yeah, forgive me up front, the apart from one, these are all from my own repertoire. But I'm not very um it's been a long time since I kind of know what's you know come out or what you know what is sort of current in the magic scene. So it's perhaps no surprise that most of the things I remember are you know involve producing well records and uh tips and uh and um uh you know old old tricks. So yeah, I'm I'm kind of a bit out of and also so much mentalism is just turned to electronics and stuff, which is I'm sure lots of fun if you're you know doing occasional close-up gigs, but if you're touring a live show, you can't be doing any of that stuff. So um I am a bit out of out of sync with what's with what's in at the moment. So yeah, it's all my own stuff, sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's that's even more interesting though, because I'm sure a lot of our listeners will know a lot of your items. So we can play a new game that normally we can't play, which is at this point, what do you think from Darren's material? If you're listening to this, which you are, because that's what this is. Um what tricks do you think Darren would put in there? I definitely think, give give no confirmations here. I think smoke has to be in there because I think it created such a massive buzz when it came about. Um and we one of our episodes we've we had um uh one of our guests has a version of smoke that he released as an effect, um, and he would take that on his dozer island with him, so it's still relevant.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I will I can tell you some smoke is not on the list because I was thinking I was thinking very practically about this and who smokes nowadays. Um when I when I did that trick for Andrew O'Connor and Michael Vine, who ran Objective and signed me up for the first TV show, and um, and then they ended up giving me the gig. Um I did that trick in uh in Joe Allen's in a restaurant in in London and just sort of lit up at the table and um weren't even sat at the smoking section. And that feels just such an age ago that uh although I did think about having it on the list once I understood the brief correctly, um, and then I thought, well no, I'd never I'd never be able to do it, so it'd be a waste if I don't do eight tricks the rest of my career, having one that relies on smoking uh would be a bad move. So no, I'm afraid it isn't on the list, but it nearly was.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, all of the people at home playing Darren Bingo, uh you've just got that one wrong along with me. So with that being said, if this is the first time that you are listening to this, today we are gonna whisk Darren away to the last. And the last potentially. We are gonna whisk Darren away to his own desert island. When he's there, he's allowed to take eight tricks with him, one book. I've got my own my own island, like David Copperfield. Your whole island.
SPEAKER_00:I will I hope you won't mind me saying this. But I um uh knew somebody who went to David's island and uh said that they were sort of uh in in the car with him, uh, doing a little bit of that sort of journey, I guess, from other plain lands to David's house. And um said it was really interesting because basically he was on the phone having to deal with all the difficult practical stuff that comes up because something's flooded and the electrics have gone, and it was a real like lesson in no matter how stratospheric you are, and you can have your own island. Ultimately, we're all dealing with the sort of the ordinary, boring, annoying daily stuff. I found it very uh I found that a very comforting tale. Anyway, sorry, back to your private island.
SPEAKER_02:So when Darren's there, he can take eight tricks, one book, one non-magic item that he uses for magic. Particulars, who's there, how big is it, what's there, are there animals there? Are there people there? All of that is in Darren's own imagination. We do not mind. The most important thing is these are the collection of tricks that Darren could not live without, if that's all he could perform for forever. So, with that being said, let's hop on your rubber dinghy uh and go to your desert island. So, what did you put in your first position?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was going to be Copperfield's um plane vanish, and I'll tell you why, because you probably haven't had that. I just figured, again, this is before I kind of read the entire email and just thought, hang on, I've got to think again. I need to get off this island. So, okay, make the plane vanish, great, but I can only presume that if they'd have brought the plane to the island for the trick, they're gonna fly home in the plane as well. So I figured it wouldn't be too hard to get on that plane and leave the island. So that was gonna be my first choice. Then I realized that wasn't the point, it wasn't like a puzzle room to escape the island. Um I did a puzzle room not that long ago in London, and um it just so happened we got we got uh divided up into teams, and everybody in my team was gay, which just sort of happened like that. And uh we realized this uh halfway through, and then the joke was that you know we didn't escape, but we did redecorate redecorate the place very nicely, and there was a quiche in the oven. Um that was true, but uh the second choice then after I disregarded that is this is the one that isn't my trick. Um and it's a card at any number. Um and the reason why I've chosen this one it's not so much that I I I don't quite I don't quite understand the sort of the holy grail aspect of it, not not really. Um and I haven't really performed it that much, but when I stopped doing uh the uh when I stopped doing card magic after I released Devil's Picture Book, which is a DVD that's out there somewhere, and I I oh no longer a DVD, I'm just gonna show my age. A streaming thing, not streaming, doesn't matter, download. Um I uh I I kind of that was sort of it, I didn't really do any card stuff, and I just haven't for years. And then the um and this was actually gonna be my book choice. I I got hold of David Burglass's The Burglass Effects book, which is about a card at any number. And uh it was the only magic book I'd read in a long time, it's the only one I really have read in a long time, and and since what I love about it, and the reason that it was the my only connection with card magic over the years, really, since stopping. Um and I it is that it it is all about the participant or the spectator, and I don't like the word spectator, it was suggest they're a kind of passive, that's just watching something uh happening and sort of observing, which is sadly so much of what passes as magic. Um, but they are there from the get-go, it's about their choices and their thoughts and their decisions and so on. And so much of card magic, like 98% of it, uh might involve you picking a card, but then you're very quickly into just watching the magician do stuff. Um you know, I take this and look and we'll put it in there, and I'm gonna give them a shuffle or whatever. And for me, and I because I've sort of lost a bit of contact with card magic, and I've sort of stopped, I've sort of fallen out of love with it a bit. I'm but a lot of magicians show me tricks. Uh, it really struck me how I'm I'm it immediately loses me with an I'm probably more sensitive, sensitive to it than most people who maybe aren't that interested in card magic or don't really think about it, but it immediately loses me. Whereas a trick that begins with asking me to think about something, asking me to make a decision or what my favorite card is or or whatever, immediately just feels more interesting to me. I feel sort of you know engaged. So um, and it also appeals to me because, like I think a lot of the best magic, you can you might have to improvise your way through it, and uh, you know, you've got a kind of a framework, and then you can sort of kind of play and take it to other places. So I um for a while I I did it just sort of you know privately, I suppose. Um and I never I kind of I didn't do it enough to really for it ever to properly feel ingrained and I've forgot the memory system and um which is ironic, isn't it? Um uh so I kind of left it. But for the short amount of time that I was doing it, it really felt like a uh a really wondrous thing. And I remember sitting with uh a guy I was on tour with and we sat at the bar and he said, I've never asked you to show me a trick, would you show me a trick? So I got I got out the deck of cards um and just did it. And it sort of it was it just it was a bit of a golden sweet spot. It just kept he just kept making a card and then kept cutting to it, or it felt like again and again I could just do this sort of impossible thing, and it was lovely. And I know it left him with a really strong impression because I've spoken spoken um with him since. So yeah, so that's my first choice. I think it it's unusual, uh, and it's not it's not particularly that um that the uh that the effect is particularly marvelous, I don't think. I think there's just something about from the get-go, it occupies a different space than most magic, most carp magic. Now, having said about the effect, when I did magic in Bristol many years ago, I um one of my first restaurant jobs was at a a restaurant called the Glass Boat, which isn't there anymore, and it was a like a floating restaurant on the water, and uh I would do magic around the tables, and I approached the table, and I remember there were sort of a couple of guys there, not they maybe they're having a meeting, and I said, Oh, hello, I'm a I'm Darren, I'm a I'm a kind of magician, which was always my way in. Uh, can I show you something? And and the guy said, and I had a deck of cards in my hand, and the guy said, Oh, actually, if you don't mind, no, sorry, we're just in the middle of a meeting, and I went, Oh, that's okay, no problem. And as I went to walk away, he said, But uh, Queen of Hearts, 13 cards down from the top. And he sort of said it in a jokey kind of way, so I sort of laughed, and that was the end of it. But of course, when I went around the corner, I thought, I presume he was just joking and being funny, but I will just check. And the Queen of Hearts was 13 cards down from the top. That really stayed with me. So, I mean, that that's just one of those beautiful moments that um I don't know. No, I never really I never asked him about it. I think by the time I had a chance he'd have gone, or I didn't want to, or something, but uh that certainly stayed with me. So I think under the right circumstances it can be can be a pretty devastating effect.
SPEAKER_02:So the version that you looked into, is it from Burglass's book?
SPEAKER_00:I yes, I yeah, I presume so. I presume that's the kind of the original version. I mean, yeah, I I don't really know my way around any of the myriad of more modern versions, but they all they all seem to compromise somewhere that you know a a card is picked or there's some kind of something that just um puts the compromise in a very visible space, which I think is is a shame. It's not really where you where you want it. The love of burglass's uh effect is that you've just you've got the number and you've got the card, and then you find your way after that. You you just you have just have to work with two random variables and a and a you know a certain amount of chicanery that is helping you, but um you have to really think on your feet, and that's uh that's lovely. It'd be shame if it was if it was sort of mechanical, that would take all the joy out of it.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think it's still one of those effects as well that lends itself to close up in in a intimate situation rather than on stage? Or do you still think that there's a place for it on stage?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's a good question. I can't really imagine it working very well on stage. David Berglos was a master at taking small close-up effects and making them work very well on stage and finding giant versions of that. Um, I never saw him do if he had a staged version of Cardany Number, which I presume he did, I didn't ever see it, so I'm sure he'd have found a way of making that really work. I think because in my gut, because it's um the sort of trick at his first that you don't necessarily know where you're gonna, well, you kind of know where you're gonna end up, but you don't know how you're gonna get there. Um, that that's a safer thing in a in an intimate setting. Uh, I think on on stage matters of pace and structure and so on are a little more a little more pressing. So I I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it on stage at all. But I'm sure David had some great solutions to that. I'm gonna blow my nose now. Excuse me.
SPEAKER_02:Uh great, really, really interesting first choice as well. Um, it's not one that I would have would have thought of immediately either. Um, but it's a great one. And again, lots of people are gonna have that book, so hopefully it will reignite their passion to to to go check back through that book, find one of those routines and work on it.
SPEAKER_00:All the fun of it is and the nuances and the the just brilliant ways of getting around certain problems, and you know, I think you need to have lived and breathed it for a long time, as David did, to have to have found those. So, yeah, it's a terrific book.
SPEAKER_02:So that brings us straight on to your second trick. So I'm guessing we're gonna go for one of your own now.
SPEAKER_00:I'm afraid so. Uh so and I I don't say any of this because I think these are better than other people's tricks at all, far from it, but they're um they're just tricks that I'd sort of worked for a long time when I used to do close up. Uh some of these are taken from my stage stuff. Um and this trick I included in notes from a fellow traveler, which is the book that I've got out at the moment for magicians. And although it's really about performing and about um I think how to um how to just make your magic more impactful, um, I did want to include some tricks in it. So I put this in it because it was one of my favorite close-up things that I that I did. And it was almost over before it started as an effect. Um it's called, by the way, it's called Watch to SOC, uh, in that it needed a name. But that doesn't quite uh perhaps sell it. Uh but what what I'd approach someone at a table, I'd introduce myself, oh hi, I have something for you. Would you mind standing up? And I'd stand them up and I'd lift my trouser leg so that the bottom of the trouser came up and they'd see there was a lump in my sock. And I said, if you have any idea what that is, it's it is for you. No, and I'd as I go and reach in and take it out. So they'd they'd sort of you know bend over and reach into my sock, and it would uh it'd be their watch. And um, because I hadn't like spoken to them before or anything, it was just a really hopefully really surreal, um odd, quick thing. And if if it were well, I normally wouldn't do anything else at that table, I'd just leave it at that. And I was really fond of it, and it it sort of came from watching Carl Clutier um uh uh uh he had a uh a gimmick that he used for getting a card into his sock, which was uh essentially a kind of silk sheath, it was like a tube that would go from a his pocket, he had like a false pocket in his trousers that would just be a uh bottomless thing that would go down to the sock. And with a bit of uh adjustment, and uh uh I found a way of making a similar thing for a watch, which is kind of easier in a way because it's a heavier object. Um, so as long as you can steal a watch while you're standing somebody up, and then so I've got something for you, and had a couple of pockets you can drop this thing in. Um and uh yeah, I I I loved all the tricks I did going around these uh the restaurants I worked in. Again, this is in Bristol really more than anywhere, many years ago, were all things that I kind of dreamt of. I'd I didn't have anything else to do, so I'd spend my days walking around thinking up ideas and then going out and uh and trying them in the in the evening. And uh and I remember I remember I I was very much into stealing watches, and uh uh I remember one lady, I remember me saying to her, uh, I'd stolen the watch and I had it in my sock, and I was just trying different ways with the trip. So I said, uh no, no, I didn't have it in my sock, I had it in my pocket. That's right, this is before I had the tube. And I said, uh, oh um, do you have the time? Or you know, some not very imaginative way into making her realise I'd stolen her watch. So she went to look at a watch, saw the bare wrist, and said, Oh no, I haven't done that my watch at me, it's at home. Which I thought was an interesting starting point for a trick, because I had a watch in my pocket. So uh I said, Oh, okay, okay, what whereabouts is it? She said, Oh, it's on my um dressing table. Obviously, she just misremembered, presume she hadn't put it on. I don't I don't wear it very often. So I got her to describe it to me. And um and then I sort of held my hands out and put my hands together like this, and said, put your hands over mine and describe it as vividly as you can so you can really see the thing. And then I, of course, I made it appear in my hands and then said, No, you know, can you see it? Ask everyone else at the table if they could see it. I said, Great, we'll take it. And when you go home, you'll find it isn't on your dressing table and so on. So that was that was fun as well. So I said I pickpocketing, watch stealing, all of that was definitely part of part of the repertoire. But yeah, watch the sock is my second selection.
SPEAKER_02:Great, really uh interesting one. Now, the the thing with stealing watches is the revelation of the watch at the end. Now, if you are a pickpocket magician, then that revelation, absolutely fine. It's it's perfect, it's part of your persona. But was that born from the frustration of not having a way to reveal that watch afterwards?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think it came out of just the joy of seeing Carl Clutier's trick. I think it was that. And I and it just seemed like a watch. It's it's fun when you can take two ideas and then combine them into one. And what I loved about it was the grammar of it, that the trick was over before it had before it had started. Because also, you know, the person's being stood up. A, you need that distraction to steal the watch, but also there's no um, you know, they're really not there's no sense that anything has has has started. Um, so I think it was just the joy of that. But yes, you're right. The sort of um the trouble with yeah, a lot of pickpocketing is that is is the reveal and how you make it more interesting. Apollo Robbins has got some really lovely um thoughts on that. Uh it reminds me actually of a running gag on Showman, which was the last uh stage show that I did. Uh so the guys backstage at the time, I think it was it. So it was Alex Hansford, chap called Tom Barford who came in later, and uh Andy Frost and Bradley Hodgins, who you you may know uh at least three of those, if not all four, uh as amazing magicians, but a running gag uh which just became hilarious, was to h just hold up a random object behind someone someone's shoulder whilst you know in the middle of a comment. So I'd be talking to Brad, and Andy would just be next to Brad, and then whilst talking to Brad, I'd just see Andy just you know hold up a wallet or a just his own, you know, just some random thing off the table. Um, but that kind of became uh funny, particularly funny when you're on stage trying to do a show that's happening uh in the in the wings as they try and make you laugh. That was funnier in real life than it was as a story.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I was gonna say, what was what was the funniest thing that they managed to hold up that that made you laugh?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, this the honest answer to this. So many years ago in Enigma, I think it was Enigma, or maybe even in the wonders, I forget, they're all the same. Um, there was a trick that involved um a deck of cards and a dice a die. I'm so sorry. Um uh and something else can't remember what um uh rolled up in um silver foil, and then I uh I kind of got my hands in it. I'm reading the number on the number on the dial, whatever it is. Anyway, I would have a little bit in that where I would have to put myself into a sort of a state in order to do it, and I'd basically I would use the moment to have a little vocal warm-up, which is quite a handy thing to do in a show, and also it's it involves making weird noises, so then the audience would laugh, and then I would I would laugh, and I had that like a little corpsing moment where I couldn't carry on for a moment because I was laughing because they were laughing, sort of thing. But of course, after you know, you do that a few nights, and uh you're it you know, it's sort of you it isn't really necessarily that funny to to do. So I said to the guys, oh, feel free if you want to make me laugh in the wings, this would be a really good point to do it. Because I've got a really clear view into the wings. I've got three people on stage looking at me, um, but uh they're they're not, you know, I'm looking past them into the wings, so feel free. So um I remember Ian Sharkey was uh on that show and he really went to great lengths. He uh he was wearing my clothes uh one night with a that I left him in the dressing room with a sign saying I'm not wearing any pants. Um he was just in my pants uh another night. Um he was the spirit of theatre uh one night as well with a sun and moon that he cut out and was dancing around. Anyway, none of this actually was funny. Like in the moment, it was just like oh okay, he's doing that, but it it like wasn't actually whatever weird head state you're in doing a show, it wasn't actually that funny. And then one night my uh now ex-partner Mark uh came to see the show and they said if you want to try and make Darren laugh in the in the at this moment, do um Mark uh he uh dropped his trousers and pants and squatted in the wings. Um, so I'm in the middle of this trick, and I look and I see this sort of pink shape. I'm like, oh Jesus. Um and also I'm I'm very aware that um he won't have any real sense of what can be seen, like from because you're very aware, like when you're in the wings as a professional, that the people at the far end of the um first row will be able to see you. But there I am looking at my then partner, um squatting unpleasantly, knowing that he can be seen by uh, you know, and then and then he saw so I did start laughing for the first time. He started laughing and then very quickly tried to um to get up and and hide. But unfortunately he had his trousers and pants around his ankle, so he he sort of fell and rolled uh towards the stage and became even more uh visible. I don't know who saw him, I just carried on with the show and hoped no one no one else would notice. Um and then I thought, what is people's experience of you know, the what is what are they thinking? What are the rest of the crew thinking? Oh, he has them waiting in the wings. Um anyway, so yeah, that was that was that was that. Probably shouldn't have told that story, it's not very pleasant.
SPEAKER_01:I don't even know where to go from this point. So um let's just go straight on to number three. So what was in your third position?
SPEAKER_00:Straight from number two. So this is also in um in in notes from a fellow traveler. Uh I wanted to put my uh so the the the few the few things that have sort of lingered from my sort of close-up days. It's so weird how you kind of lose my you lose a sort of muscle for it, really. Um uh so this became so I I um uh I'm sure like a lot of a lot of magicians and mentalists, uh there's a sort of a holy grail as to what what you can do if people stop you on the street and ask you to do something. And bizarrely, it doesn't really ever um happen. It used to happen a lot um to me, it doesn't really so much now, but certainly for a long time I thought I need an answer to this question, and I knew I didn't want to carry any props around me, so that just kind of made it more of a creative challenge as to what the propless version of it would be. However, I did have one prop that had just become part of my everyday stuff, and that was one of those ring flight cases, if you remember those. So I guess this trick has gone through different iterations since. But the first version of that was a um like a reel in a key case. So I I I just used to have it in my keycase, and then years later I'd stopped doing close-up, but I just still had this thing on me, so it didn't feel like a prop. Um and I um so I thought, well, I could there's that, like that is a that's a prop that I got on me, but I know vanishing somebody's ring, it would be a very weird thing for for me to do that. It's not really kind of part of my world. So one of the things I talk about in the in this book um is ways of doing close-up in particular, types of tricks where you can extricate yourself from the from the climax of the trick. In other words, that um I think part of the reason why magicians and mentalists often seem smug, um, is that we often don't know what to do with the the moment when the trick hits and the person goes, wow, that's amazing. And you're like, like, how do you uh what do you what do you do with that with that moment? So for someone a bit introverted like me, like the best solution is well, just don't make sure you're not there for that for that moment. I just let it be an entirely personal private experience with the person. So I started looking at how do you do this? And I remember I was in Morocco smoking one of I think the three cigars I've had in my life. It's horrible, uh, with Fergus Flanagan, I'm sure you know, and we were um talking about this sort of problem anyway. So uh the solution was, or what once it was a couple of things we came up with that night. And one of them was this um what I call I don't know exactly, I think I call it what do I call it? A trick with a key. What do I call it? I'm actually looking at the contents of the book, but this is a really big book because I can't find it anyway. Um a trick with a key, I think uh call it. Um so what else could you do? What would be a mentalism trick using that prop? So the scenario would be somebody uh stopping in the street and saying, Can you show me a trick? I guess they wouldn't stop in the trick less than you, but if getting into it in like an impromptu situation, um and I've only done this really a few times, but it's worked very well when I have. Uh so I'd say, Well, uh we have we have met before, do you remember? And they're like, No, we haven't, we haven't met. No, no, no, we've we've we've met before. We met in Timpson's in the key cutting place. Do you remember? No. Yeah, you were getting your you should not remember, you were getting your key cut, your front door key cut. Um and then uh and I said to you that we would meet again. You don't you don't remember any of this, do you know? Perfect, okay. Show me your front door key. So they'd give me their front door key, I'd have a look at it, and then uh I'd throw it away. Um so uh ideally I'd sort of maybe but it's near a manhole cover, or maybe it's off a bridge, or somehow I would throw their key away, by which point I've normally switched it for a coin or something that looks quite realistic as it flies through the air or down the manhole cover, a little blint uh of metal. Anyway, um so now you're in quite a nice position, and then uh I I would say it's okay. We've we've done this before. You gave me another copy of your key, and I said that we would meet here today. Uh, in fact, uh, hang on, and I get my keys out and I go through my keys and go, think it's this one. No, it's this one. It's not exactly the same as yours. Yours had the little owl on the front. This one doesn't, but it's close enough. But that should open your front door, and I give them the key and leave them with it. And then they've got their whole walk home with this key, thinking, why how do why has Darren Brown got my front door key on his on his key ring? And they get and then the lovely moment where they're gonna actually try it in their door and it's gonna open their front door. Um, it just seems to me that that's a really lovely way of doing magic and just not making it about yourself in the moment, just giving them something to go to go away with. So um that was one of two two thoughts. The uh the other thought I'm gonna go with that one because that would that just create such a lovely, kind of creepy, um weird thing. The other one I won't go into now, but it does uh in the book as well. But I I thought it was a um uh a fun and sort of counterintuitive way of approaching um the effect of a trick and uh a use for a I think a really good prop. And also, you don't there's no ring to lose. I mean, we've all done that. We've all done the trick and heard the tink tink tink as this person's ring is uh in my case falling down a stairwell behind me. Um so yeah, no rings to lose either.
SPEAKER_02:I wish I was a spectator in that moment, though. And I know that we don't often get moments like that ourselves nowadays, but I would love to be in that moment and to have that walk home and to think, what on earth has just happened? Um it sort of reminds me of in your last show, you had the uh the deck under box, um, and obviously, uh, without giving too much away, it's available online. I think you can go and see it. So I don't want to give too many spoilers to that.
SPEAKER_00:But there's so that might be my number five trick.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, oh well then people will find out. I won't say anything more about that, but that has that same moment where it almost feels like I mean, being in the theatre, the the sad thing is that people won't necessarily be in the theatre when that happens. But for me, being in the theatre and hearing an onslaught of people around you genuinely start questioning life in general and and what's going on to them. It's just amazing. So, yeah, that that moment would be incredible. It would be that moment where you walk back and go, Are aliens real? What's what's happening here?
SPEAKER_00:It's also one of I mean this this uh key trick, uh, it's also a rare, a rare example of where you get to have an argument with the um with your participant because because you've just thrown the key away and you're giving them another one and then leaving them. I mean that that's if they believe that that's really what's going on, that that is an argument. They're not gonna go, oh great, oh wow, I can't wait to go home, and you know that there will be an argument, um, which I think is you know always fun.
SPEAKER_02:That's a great choice. Uh, and that brings us to your halfway point. So, what's in your fourth position?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so by this point, I'm thinking I've got to actually think about my career here continuing and what what what would be the sort of um absolute stalwarts that I that I continue with? So I've chosen for this the Oracle act, which was my QA act from again one of those shows Evening of Wonders or Enigma. Enigma thing. Anyway, but I did also did it in um on Broadway, so it's kind of it's gone through a few a few versions. Um and uh I'm choosing it because I mean it's it's a sort of potentially could be a show in itself. In fact, there's a t I did a TED talk that was just um just the Oracle out, or at least half of it. Um so it although although at the beginning, actually it's an interesting thing with with these shows and that was uh three you know three, four shows in that we did that, we often sit down. I say we, I mean me and Andrew Connor and Andy Nyman when we're writing the shows, um uh, or uh Stephen Long and Ian Sharkey on um Svengali, but we're often thinking, what what are the what are the sort of classics of mentalism that that I haven't done? And uh uh a thing often happens that I often find myself a little resistant at first. Like I didn't think a QA act was that interesting, it just felt a bit old-fashioned. Um, I think probably maybe it's done more now, but certainly at the time it it wasn't. Um and and then you do it and you realize why it's why it works and why it is such a mainstay of of mentalism. Had the same experience with the psychometry routine in um in uh showman, so um, which which I was wasn't sure which one to use actually for this, but I ended up going with the oracle out. Um but the uh again, I wasn't sure about doing psychometric. Isn't that just returning things to people that are objects in bags? And it just again, and I kind of thought maybe maybe there's a more interesting version of it, but it just didn't feel at first glance that interesting. And then I just made it about the about the objects and the people, not really about who's whose object was who. In fact, sometimes I just I'd get that bit wrong. Um and it it became like for me the most gorgeous moment in that show to perform. Um and also became a sort of emotional um way through to where the show was going at the end. Uh, that was important structurally, but um it was just sort of it's a very lovely thing to uh, as with both this and the oracle, to not really know quite where you're going. That you know you've got certain things in place um magically to sort of guarantee you this sort of you know framework. And then after that, you've just got to really sort of think on your feet. Um and it's all about really kind of creating a sort of a tone and then just getting that tone uh getting that tone right. And it's it's it's a really lovely experience, and there aren't there aren't many times in a show where you get to have that, and it it's sort of it's a bit like time stops, and you're you know, if you're going out for dinner after the show or something, and it is tempting to think, you know, in the middle of in the middle of a more mechanical trick, it's very common to be thinking, oh, we're going out for a tie after this, and that'd be lovely. You know, you your mind can start to do that. Whereas the lovely thing about something like the oracle or whatever is that you're you you you there's none of that, you're completely present with it. Um, and on top of that, certainly when we did it on Broadway, it was sort of lit very beautifully, and I never get never get to see what the show looks like because I'm I'm facing the wrong way, but by all accounts it looked beautiful as well. So and it I always do it in the white tie, and I got bandages around my head as you try and you know create a strong uh visual image. Um but yeah, I I think for that for that experience that rewarding experience as a performer of having to be totally present with it, and also unavoidably feeling like you're stepping into a tradition that's you know had its heyday, I guess probably in the sort of 20s and 30s, but um uh and for good reason. And also, like all the best things, from a magical point of view, it's so simple and um uh you know, there's sort of really nothing, nothing, nothing to it. And I, you know, I remember a very, very seasoned and knowledgeable magician saying to me, I can kind of get my head around how you did it at the start when you were sort of dealing with people's questions as they'd written in envelopes, but then you stopped using the envelopes. I just I I just don't know how, you know, it's uh it's it's lovely to to know how uh or just for something to have it's like a big psychological story that everybody's getting caught up in because it's so kind of emotionally sort of appealing and and um it's such a fun sort of ride that you kind of I hopefully you just sort of stop questioning too much uh in the in the audience, stop trying to work it out, and also realizing that it's all about the information that you're giving, and which again is something I've read, it's something I knew in theory, that no one really cares how you're doing it, it's what you're revealing. But like that's really true, but that's an amazingly liberating thing because then you can you can uh design you and I make sure when I do the when I do that Q ⁇ A that I've got this control over the shape of the material I'm I'm I'm giving. You know, I've got a um I can mold it in a way that it'll have a an arc and so on. But you just get to play with what what is the most extraordinary and sensational uh stuff. And sometimes you can just make that up and that will just, you know, that will just fly. I mean, those are the best moments of stuff you're just making up. Um uh so yeah, that's a that's a wonderful thing. And I think that given that that could be an act in itself, I would definitely have to keep that as one of my eight tricks to continue with. And I still do it in um my sort of corporate act on rare occasions when I do that.
SPEAKER_02:I think um, forgive me if I'm wrong, I think it's in miracle you have sort of a mini QA. I recall having people uh sort of sat into almost bleachers, and then um I think that's where you lift someone up. Um I think that's where that ends, but you do like a mini QA, but I think you preface it by saying, This is all made up. This is all none of this is real, this is all made up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that was it. It was it was an infamous, and it was um it came out of it's interesting how these sometimes the best things come out of mistakes and real limitations. So it was a real lesson. So we had 52 seats come out on stage, it was the end of Act One, and the whole scene, the whole set transforms into a a um a cathedral. There's a guy who's been put to sleep, and he's in a this whole kind of sarcophagus thing, wheels on, and he's gonna be asleep during the interval, and um, and these all these trucks they're called that the seats come out and there's smoke, and we and it was for it gonna be for a giant card at any number um trick in the second half, and then we we took that out because then we just there was a couple of card tricks, which is felt a bit too much. So, but we were left with all these this big transformation scene and all these seats, so we couldn't not use them. So one afternoon, having ditched the card at any number trick, we're looking at 52 seats, going, what what else could this be? And it struck me that it looked a bit like a a studio or a studio audience set up in a studio, which always makes me think of of those sort of dodgy mediums when they have their TV shows and they're you know doing stuff with a with an audience. Um, so that became that because let's let's do some mediumship, and then it's well, how do you make mediumship interesting? And I think um it's it's uh yeah, it stayed with me this because the I think I think theatrically it was interesting because I as you say I'm I'm saying this is I'm making this up, I'm making this up. This is rubbish. So yeah, I've got your I've got your aunt here, her name is um um 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 um blah blah blah. And it would go back and forth like that. And it just kind of occupied this um interesting space. We I think we get rather caught up, particularly as mentalists, um, 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. Um, and I don't think ultimately your responsibility is to that particular ethical question. I think your responsibility is a theatrical one. And actually having this sort of other thing in the air, which isn't how is he doing it or is he real? It's just this sort of kind of you know, two ideas battling it out in your head. He's saying it's rubbish, but at the same time, he's saying stuff that's you know impossibly accurate. That just felt like a really interesting um sort of place to sit. And I remember um really early on in the uh tour, I came out at the stage door, and there was a girl there, and you know, bright girl, maybe like in her early 20s, and she said, Oh, um, I wonder if you could put me in touch with my grandmother who's passed away. And you know, she'd just seen the show, and I said, Oh god, I said, I'm so sorry. I I really hoped it's clear from the show that I can't really do any of that stuff. And she went, Oh, yeah, 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 such an interesting thing for someone to say, and said so much about how we are happy to sort of uh sort of balance these completely um contradictory narratives when it comes to this kind of stuff, what we emotionally want to believe and what we intellectually know uh can be so different. Um, so yeah, that was um that was uh interesting, and I think that the best stuff in any show, uh certainly as a performer, doesn't necessarily translate to the audience's experience, but is when you get to um improvise and just have to really really think on your feet. It's uh it's a it's a treat if you're doing you know 300 shows.
SPEAKER_02:You mentioned that you still do it in your corporate. Do you still get to a stage where that same thing happens to you? So people come up to you and they want you to have talks with their dead relatives, etc. etc. Or has it died out completely now?
SPEAKER_00:I find it's died out. I mean, I I never do I never do tricks on you know, I mean I avoid chat shows and stuff anyway, but if I am ever a guest on something I never perform, and I that was a a rule right from the very start, which is a bit surreal, really, as a rule, but that kind of served me well, and I think because I'm never doing that stuff in interviews, it um it sort of maybe doesn't occur to people that I'll just do that stuff at a at a at the drop of a hat. And yeah, people don't really ask. And if they do ask, it's normally like um somebody being a bit rude anyway. Like it's just like I'm having dinner here, and they want me to can you come to our table and uh love you to, you know, but so really so rarely happens, and if it does, I said if it's a bit rude anyway, I don't feel bad going, I'm sorry, I'm having dinner and whatever. Um but uh or we've met before in Timson's, or however rude really takes me. Um not not too much nowadays, but uh yeah, there's sort of other other strangenesses that come instead from being well known and from doing the sort of stuff that I do, and from the way people respond to anything remotely hypnotic or um uh you know, the the card trick that you mentioned in showman that that really was very triggering for a lot of people. I mean it's a card trick, um, but it upset a lot of a lot of people. Um, so the the stuff I have to deal with is that rather than I'd love it if it was just how can you put me in touch with a dead relative? That would be relatively light.
SPEAKER_02:Uh great. So that brings us over your halfway point. So we've so far we've had an ACAN, we've had the watch in sock, um, we've had the I'm gonna call it Key and River or Key the Key Trick.
SPEAKER_00:The Key Trick, yeah. Cool. Um they didn't have names, it's quite nice not having names. It's a bit like I've never really kind of been very specific about what I do at all. I like the fact none of my tricks really have names apart from smoke. So number five.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, so what's in your fifth position?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, I I've I mean there's no particular order of these, but this is where I've got the card to box trick from um from showman, and I think the origin of this um came from the brilliant mysterious author of the jerks, whom I just I love all of that. Um and he had a um a use for the invisible deck where you um you I'm trying to remember exactly what it was, but it was something like you've you convince the person that they've they've put the card, they've they've turned the card around themselves and that you've made them forget it, that you've sort of hypnotized them. Um and I'd always loved Jay Sankey's trick. I don't know what it's called, um, but it's such a brilliant thing where you um you make somebody forget a card that they've just seen. And it's just it's a mechanical card trick, but this one person seems to have forgotten it. Every everyone else knows they've been just looking at a totally different card. Um uh so I've always loved those sorts of those ideas, um, because it creates something bigger, it just creates a bigger question is in the air than just you know how you did that, or you know, how you found the card or whatever. The normal questions often arc are magic. So um I uh one of my mainstays when I used to do my hypnosis shows was that on a certain queue, people would get up and go and do something and come and sit back down again and have no memory of doing it. And it was always really fun watching somebody think through the fact that their I don't know, that their um that their wallet was over the other side of the stage, or that someone else had it in the audience when they were just really holding on to it. Because by this point, it's you know it's the fifth time it's happened. So they know they sat on their wallet and then seemingly three seconds later it's not there. Uh so it felt like um this this could be a fun thing. So the trick if people haven't seen it, is it's a three-stage trick. And the first stage is somebody comes up out of the audience, I sit them down at the table. There's a strange moment where I do a sort of hypnotic uh induction thing, and then the microphone goes off, and they um uh we don't we don't hear this little bit of a conversation I have with them, and then I tell them that uh I'm gonna do a card trick. They pick a card and there's a box on the table, and I and they I say, put your hand on the card, and we all we've all seen what it is. It's gonna disappear from under your hand and appear in the box. And I say it happened on the count of three. And we go one, two, and then all the lights go out, and there's a long pause, and I say three, the lights come back up, and the card's in the box, and it's just sort of it's sort of funny, but um seems more like a gag. Um and then I explained to them how it worked, and I said, It worked because you put it in the box. When you came and sat down, I put you to sleep, you won't remember. Um, and I told you that you'd put it in the box yourself and you won't remember doing it. And they don't believe that. Um, it just seems like a silly explanation. So, we'll do it again, but this time we'll leave the lights up. And I take the box, put it on the floor this time, and we do it again. And sure enough, between two and three, as I count from three, the guy gets up, walks around, puts the card in the box, and sits back down again and has no memory of doing it. And also we film it, and now I can play it back to him. So now he watches on the screen himself getting up and doing it. And then the third phase, um, which is the most satisfying, is doing the same trick on the audience. So this time we say, okay, we'll do it again, but this time we'll get somebody to guard the box. And there was a real issue with this trick, just keeping the logic of it right. So it sounds silly, but I mean it's it was like we all know how it's working in the audience, and why are we guarding the box? Why are we upping the stakes? So it was all about creating, it was all for this person on stage. Well, if you think I'm just doing it with some slight of hand, look, this time we'll get someone to guard the box. So someone's guarding the box, which is hanging from a rope, someone's staring at that from the audience, not gonna take their eyes off it. This time he's gonna sign the card, uh, and he's got his hand on that on the table. Count a three, and then I say before I count to the audience, this will work with some of you as well. Um, and then I count one, two, and then there's a sort of a a like a glitch. The lights go out for a second, and um one, two, is it one, two, three, or one, three? Or is it one, two, three, four, five? God, I can't even remember. Somehow I've missed out numbers. Is it one, two, five? It's one, two, five, isn't it? I'm sure that's it. Yeah, sorry, it's counted to five, not counted to three. I think. Um, anyway, uh there's a glitch, and the number, some of the I haven't counted all the numbers, whatever they are, and the card's gone from under his hand, and the chair I was sat on is over the other side of the stage. It's underneath where this box was hanging, the box is swinging, and sure enough, his sign card is in the box uh on the other side of the stage. Um, but the audience had missed it too, and that was the moment that you were talking about earlier, um, which it was so interesting doing this for the first time because what follows that moment is us walking over to the swinging box, it coming down, him, the person saying, No, I never took my eyes off it. They can't understand the person guarding the box, can't understand what's happened. And the person takes a box and opens it up and takes it down, and sure enough, it's their sign card uh inside. It's a really it's a really good card trick, and there was like a lot of thought that went into it, but no one's paying any attention at all because the whole audience are just like, Did you just miss that? You know, they're all having this sort of there's just this murmur and um sort of a general hubbub and confusion. So I'm just carrying on, and night after night, I kind of got used to it, I'm carrying up with the trick, knowing that no one is listening or watching, um, to get to the end of this uh terrific uh car trick, uh, which of course also owes a lot to uh Guy Hollingworth. Um just to credit him where that's due. So that was uh that was such a joy to do, and part of it uh A, it never not worked, and I every night I didn't I was sort of like I didn't quite, I wasn't sure if it was gonna work or not. So there was a real uh tension for me in it, which made it really fun. And I we had a sort of plan B and C that we um I say we, I mean me and also, but if I change anything, all the you know, lighting and sound, all that's got to change too. So as a team, we sort of had this like a backup plans, but never had to use them. Um it always it always just worked. Um, some lights better than others, um, in terms of how the person behaved and uh you know how what they're they're sort of just how um entertaining it was, I suppose. Um and sometimes people when they're on stage. Especially when there's something hypnotic in the air, they can um they start to feel like they're playing along, which is so annoying. Or sometimes they do the opposite and they just go a bit sleepy, which also kind of takes the edge off it. So it really varied as to what the trick felt like, but sort of, but it always worked. Um and always had this sort of uh jeopardy to it, and always had this gorgeous moment of just knowing that this sort of bomb was just about to sort of uh land in the audience as it as it were, not an actual bomb, um, was lovely. So I adored that. And then, of course, the kicker of the trick, which I'm forgetting, is at the very end of the show, um, the audience had then played the time that they'd missed, which is the footage of the person walking across the stage and putting the um putting the card in the box, the thing that they all missed or most of them missed. Um, I remember uh a really interesting thing of uh I was in Birmingham and I'd been to see a physio a couple of times there because I had a some problem in my back or something. And um as often when I'm at a physio, I end up talking a lot about having a whole discussion with him about you know pain and um the show Miracle when I was doing the faith healing. And I ended up inviting this guy to come and see the show, and he came with his wife and he said, uh, oh, you'll probably um whatever you're gonna do, you'll probably get me because I'm really suggestive. I'm always being hypnotized. My wife's not though, but you'll probably get me. I thought, okay, well, maybe you'll end up on stage or whatever. Although I never get people out that I know, but that was that. And then he came and saw the show, and then he came out afterwards. I've got to get this right because it was really, it was really right. So he told me that he was very hypnotisable. Anyway, he comes around afterwards, so after this trick has finished the show, and he said, uh, he said it was really interesting, you didn't get me at all, actually. That didn't fool me, the car trick didn't fool me, but it completely fooled my wife. Um, I we had a big argument about it, in fact, afterwards. I remember seeing the guy walk across, I totally saw it walk across, but she didn't. She um she she fell for it, she forgot, she forgot the 10 seconds, and it was a really interesting thing to kind of unravel that he was so suggestible that he had filled in the time for himself and convinced himself that it had happened, and of course it hadn't worked for her in the same way, she'd just seen what you know a non-suggestible person would see, but that had meant in his mind that she'd fallen for it was just a really kind of interesting, confusing uh uh moment for me in the dressing room afterwards. So, yeah, that was a really uh a real delight, and then after that I killed a fish.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, you yes, you did towards the end. Um what was great, I mean, you're never gonna have the experience of it, but from being in the audience, that effect actually had sort of like a two-parter in terms of the reactions, because I remember having one person to my left who it had worked sort of, so they were like, Yeah, well, you know, I don't know, I don't think it it really happened. And then I had someone on my right, this this lady who was just my my god, how how's he done that? I I'm not this doesn't normally work on me, just pure shock, and then the end of the show happens, so they get to see this this part, and there was a moment where the guy on my left completely switched, and the his whole the whole ground beneath him just swallowed him up, and it it's almost like he couldn't he couldn't backtrack, but he couldn't also admit to himself that he'd been caught with it. So he he he didn't know where to go with it, he didn't know how to digest it, he couldn't really talk, he couldn't, he couldn't compute what was going on at all. So it was lovely that if you didn't get them the first time, you were gonna get them by the end of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes, that's a really yes, I suppose that's a good point. It's like a pincer movement, isn't it? It's gonna get you one, yeah, one way or the other. But it was, as I mentioned earlier, it was really surprising how upsetting that trick was for some people. So we started getting like angry letters about it. And like the first, I think the first time someone was really upset about it, you it's easy to kind of think, oh well, it's just you know, someone's upset about it, it's a bit odd, but I hope they're okay and can't do much about that. But then it became a bit of a um not a regular thing, but certainly enough to kind of really pay attention to, uh, to the extent that I then had to change the trick and put in um, you know, don't don't take part in this. Close your eyes now if you suffer from any form of PTSD, um, or if you've, you know, if you uh I can't even quite remember what the list of things was, but I think BTSD was the was the big one, or whatever passes for PTSD nowadays. Um, because I think the idea of the idea of first of all suppressing a memory and you know being made to forget something is potentially a delicate one if you've if you've uh had bad stuff happen to you that you have suppressed. And also it's quite a violating thing, just the idea that you could really get inside someone's head without their without their permission, which of course to me is just what what I do, and I don't really think about it as anything um that's gonna be upsetting for people as an idea, but I think it it all the things you're saying there, like that the ground can really fall out from beneath you, and how that that can mean really different things to different people. So there we were with a a card trick that was causing proper distress to some to some people, not just being angry, but like, you know, people you know shaking, um, in tears, sobbing, just it really weird um um situations that kind of like came out of it. So that was that was fascinating because I've I've often had moments like that when I've toured, um, particularly if there's anything sort of hypnotic in the in the show, but we didn't think that the cart trick would um would be what would uh what would get people there the most. So yeah, you never uh you never know. And then of course then you have to you do have to change it. You have to be, you know, take those things uh seriously. Um you want to find a way of changing it that doesn't soften the effect, if that only adds to it. And then of course, adding it adding in a um a disclaimer, do not take that. I would say get out, leave the theatre now if you suffer from any of these things, including PTSD and others, um uh go step outside and we'll they'll the ushers will bring you back in. And of course, all of that only adds to the electricity of the of the moment, but was a genuine um genuinely necessary thing to to call for. Because you don't want to just soften the effect and make it half as good because a small percentage of people are triggered by it. You want to respond to that responsibly whilst also having your responsibility to the show and the rest of the audience is a tricky and interesting one, all of which is covered in uh notes from a fellow traveller.
SPEAKER_02:Which I've got my um my little copy here. You've got one in the background. I love it, you've got to be a little bit. So you have it there. Uh, and there's your uh deck of cards as well, which was also very interesting. It was like a little uh virtual online um hunt that we had to go through.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I met someone the other day who had won that. I never uh so when we produced the deck of cards, Jonathan Baim, who uh I guess runs Theory 11, he suggested, well, should let's put some kind of um treasure handle something in. Sometimes we do these things, and uh so I mean you literally just I'll say I get the it's all over now, so um, I don't think there's any problem with me saying it. If you bought the boxed edition, then in the box there was a little card with something on it. But if you felt inside the envelope, do you know any of this? Have you have you done it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've got I've got the envelope up there as well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If you felt inside the envelope, there was a message in Braille and it was some numbers. Like who's A, who is gonna do that? But clearly some people did. Um if you take those numbers as coordinates, I think you get to Todmiden, which is um a town in the north of England that I did one of my shows in. Um, so now you realize you must be on to something. There's uh a sort of a running thing, I think, in the packaging around this book, uh around the um the uh deck of cards that looks like a book, and I think there's a reference to a a title. I can't I can't remember what it is, but either way, if you Google, you then you're gonna hopefully want to Google bookshops in Topmerton. And if you do, you get to one, and there's something on the front page of that that is a sort of a clue that lets you know you're on the right track. I think probably whatever this other title is that has come up is right there on the front page. And then you're gonna be looking through that site, and it's the crossword. There's a puzzle, there's a puzzle page on the website, and if you do the crossword, I think it's the one clue that doesn't work, that doesn't fit, and that word is the password. And if you type in that password somewhere, you win the prize. I mean, the the thought that anybody would even feel around inside an empty envelope, let alone do all of that. And then I just I met someone the other day who came to see one of the um previews of Unbelievable. Uh and uh he he had done all of that, and he was like, Yeah, yeah, I just did that and felt the braille, and you know, think anything of it. Yeah, extraordinary. Um, so there we are. If anybody else was trying, that's what you had to do.
SPEAKER_02:My question for you, based on on what you just said, I mean, I know in your book you reference uh the lady who was at the bar, and um she sort of having uh an episode of of some sort and you try and get her out of it and and talk her out of it. When you have the people, uh you mentioned that you also put the the warning in. Number one, did the warning actually stop those things from happening? And number two, if they did happen, how how did you get around those people being upset or angry?
SPEAKER_00:It greatly reduced it. There were two things that I realized. I was having more uh issues with people responding strangely to the suggestion and hypnosis throughout. And there was there was sort of some suggestion-based routines in the first half, but very light, nothing, nothing um that you'd think would be upsetting. I don't think they were, but nonetheless, it was sort of creating this atmosphere of hypnosis in the room. Um so uh and I realized after 20 years of doing it and having sometimes people react badly to it, but always being able to sort it out. I realized that what was all that was happening was they were having a panic attack. So people that were prone to panic attacks anyway, maybe they joined in with the uh suggestion routine with the audience and they'd close their eyes, and then at the end I've said, you know, wake up and open your eyes, and they haven't been able to open their eyes. And sometimes that does happen, like if you're doing it with a group of people, sometimes someone takes a little longer to come out of it. Um, and but I think if you if you feel a bit lost in a crowd of a couple of thousand people, and it is taking you a little while to come out of it, and the show's carrying on, you might get it into your head of, oh, I'm stuck, I'm I'm I'm stuck. Um, and again, that might not bother a large percentage of people, but I think if you're also a bit prone to panic attacks, and then that kicks in, then you've got uh this sort of self-perpetuating thing. So it's a panic attack plus you can't open your eyes, and you you think you're hypnotized, and that's what's uh created it, as opposed to I'm having a panic attack, and I'm telling myself I can't open my eyes. So it was interesting, and I I realized that that's what it was. So I that was the other thing I remember saying. Don't take part in this if you're at talker under panic attacks, uh, and if you um have any issues with PTSD. And interestingly, I think it maybe happened once or twice after I put that in, and but both times it was people that ignored the warning and took part, despite the fact that they did one of one or other of those things did affect them. Um, and then as to how to deal with it, I mean, there's no I get this is all stuff I talk about in the book because I was writing notes from a fellow traveller during the day, so I was doing the show in the evening, and I wanted to write about performance, as well as like writing a show and putting it together, because not more people are doing that nowadays. Um, and I'd sort of kind of written my book for close-up many years ago, so I thought this would be a good thing to do. Um, but because I was doing it during the day, I was including experiences often from the night before on stage, which is why it's quite a long book, because it's uh it was a long tour. Um, so I thought I would include these things in the book because it was all part of the wider experience of of doing the show. Um and there is no and I wanted to sort of offer advice because there isn't really much around for people if they are using hypnosis or anything as to what to do. Uh and I think the answer to in for me is always just uh to be present and patient, and uh to just be with the person and slowly let them inch their way out of it, um, and to understand what they're what their experience is well enough that uh you you can it's a very powerful thing when you can feedback to a person what you know they're experiencing and guide them to the next to the next sort of stage, as opposed to thinking, oh she's just it's she just wants attention, she'll get out of it, get the bucket of water and things like that, which I've sort of heard done, which I mean maybe that stuff works sometimes, but to me it's just all a bit all a bit wrong. Um every time it happens, I think the person's gonna be angry and upset, and I'm gonna get into terrible trouble for it, and all the rest of it. And actually, very touchingly, it's it's always um they're always very appreciative of the time. So in in the book, I talk about a woman who gets her head stuck to the table in um in the bar in I can't even remember what it was now, but uh Nottingham, I think. So uh in the interval, so there'd been some very light hypnotics up in the first half, and then I get a message in the interval saying this woman's got a head stuck to the bar. Uh uh and I think by this point people were starting to come back in for the second half. So I went up, and there she was, but she was furious and angry. Luckily, I say luckily, um for me, I suppose it she did look like she was drunk. Um, so I don't think anybody was thinking that there was a problem other than maybe someone had too much to drink. Uh, but she wasn't, but she was uh oddly furious, um as in like very kind of very kind of you know really vitriolic about it. And I ended up um sort of having to just go back and do the second half of the show because she wouldn't let me help her, she wouldn't let me even begin to help her. And by this point, she'd come off the table and she was on the on the floor and she couldn't get up. Uh and I remember sort of the end of the conversation was me saying, Well, okay, I'm gonna if you do you want me to help you, I've got to go and carry on with the show now. She's like, Yeah, okay, well, if you enjoy the second half of your show, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, I will. And then I'm doing the rest of the show thinking, why did I get a bit chiffy with it? At the end. Plus, I'm doing the second half of the show thinking, you know, I'm talking to someone about the deceased relative sentimental objects, and I'm thinking in the back of my head, there's a woman stuck to the floor in the interval in the um in the bar upstairs. So um then I did go up afterwards, and by this point, St. John's ambulance had been called and um uh the air had been sort of cordoned off, and she'd got over the anger side of it. Now she was just upset, and I um could spend time um with her, and then it was very different. Then she was happy for me to talk to her, and then she came out of it, and everything was fine, other than the fact you know, she's been asleep for a long time, so you know, in a bit of an awkward position, things like that. Again, you just need to be careful and present and just really uh had that experience happen to you enough times that you know how to make somebody feel okay, and that afterwards, when it's done, that that continues the work, you know, giving having a hug and a bit of a laugh about it, and buying them a drink and just those things that just create a story of what's happened, which is really all it is, it's somebody just succumbing to a story of what they think is going on that you make that story feel uh right. Um, but unfortunately, you know, if people are if they're if their friends are panicking, or if if you know, well, call an ambulance, all that kind of stuff, that really doesn't help. That's going to make a person panic so much more. So there's quite a lot of that sort of management of things. Luckily, this doesn't happen very often. Um, and she was um said she was happy, and I got a really sweet card from her and her husband, who's just sort of sat there watching the whole thing, not sure what to do, um, really sort of thanking me for my time afterwards, which always you know surprises and touches me when you know people who uh say that as opposed to, you know, how dare you. Um so yeah, that uh that wasn't the car trick though. That was the that was that was just making people forget the number seven, you know, in in the first half of the show. So you just never you never know, and you have to you do have to take this stuff uh seriously and be and be responsible about it because you never you never know what people are bringing to bringing to the table.
SPEAKER_02:It was such an amazing trick to see live. Um and it was just so wonderfully constructed, um, and it was yeah, it was a joy. It's sadly it's one of those things that you're not gonna get the the same reaction as as being in the audience, but well, we didn't know how to show it on TV, of course, that whole card to boxing, because I mean we it sort of dawned on us at some point.
SPEAKER_00:Hang on, we're gonna film this. What are you gonna watch on TV? Like there were so many layers of difficulty to that, because if it happens, if it's if that person has crossed the stage and put the card in the box, you would see that uh at home, or if you haven't, because you've been hypnotized in the moment and missed it, you certainly see it if you go back and watch it. So then why aren't you why aren't you seeing it? And then and then really just in the end, it had to become about this is something that happened to the people in the audience. This was what would happen to you if if you'd have come and seen the show live, this was their experience, and not trying to make it an effect for uh for people at home. So that was sort of ultimately what we how but we were gonna at one point we were gonna cut to me cooking at home. We were gonna go one, two, and then it would cut to me making poached eggs and talking about how you the ideal way of poaching an egg, and then it would cut back to the stage five, and you know, we were playing around with all sorts of weird ways out of it. I think in the end we just sort of we just lingered on the audience and just sort of created this here is an odd moment for the audience.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was a superb trick, uh, and it intrigues me where you're gonna go now because that feels I mean, in terms of the Oracle Act and Car to Box, in recent times, those are two of the biggest tricks when you think Darren Brown, you think of and and sorry, his live shows as opposed to the TV stuff. You do think Oracle Act and and now that car to box was so well received by everyone. So yeah. I've got no idea where this is gonna go. I'm in intrigued to see what's in your sixth position.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I was going to go for the ending of um Something Wicked This Way Comes, which was the newspaper test that is then followed by a um a video showing how I'd planted this idea throughout the whole show. Um and I've sort of seen that premise done so many times since. Plus, there's you know already kind of a couple of the big routines from the show's ending, so I decided not to do that and go small again. So I've gone for the ESP matchup trick. Years ago, I bought the uh from Davenport, I bought um 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. No enormous, I think they it felt like there were like four mentalists when I started doing it. It really wasn't a thing. Um and so I started doing uh this just a very uh I guess very standard matchup trick. And then it because 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 gonna make the a routine like that magical, which laughably get referred to as subtleties. Um but I mean it really isn't. I mean, the subtlety is is the method, that's like the small part of it. I mean, the the 90% of what's gonna make the magic work is all the other stuff that you can then bring to it. Um, I've always loved it and haven't really done it for a while, but it I think if I'm thinking in terms of you know the Atrix that to the rest of my career would serve me, it's an easy thing to slip in the pocket. Uh and you can really make something like that play play really big. Um it's uh it's great. And I uh 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 gonna that's gonna matter. Um so I love it. I think as a and I did it on I did it on stage, and David Berglass had this really gorgeous ending. Not not quite to this trick, but he had the matchup 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 not the not the plastic thing that you're sliding cards into. Um, but David had a really um wonderful ending to that thing, that matchup trick, where first of all you'd show that the cards match, then you'd uh when you turn the thing round and the two columns match, then you would show that you'd 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 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 the triangle of the boat, 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 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. Never did, but it's a nice looking thing. Um uh but I did use the same uh idea of predicting it in I 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, um which really I think must have come, must have come, I think, from David's uh idea, although it didn't involve a picture or anything. But anyway, yeah, it's a lovely thing. And um, having done it on stage, uh it's it was perfect in this moment for like a sort of an intimate, an intimate thing on stage rather than everything being big, it's a nice sort of change of texture, but like the nail up the nose thing I did as well. Sometimes it's quite nice to have these really kind of um one-on-one suite of things as well. So yeah, just because I've done that forever, it's probably one of the first trips 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. There's probably a lot of names for it now, but that that one.
SPEAKER_02:I think, yeah, ESP matchup feels feels uh like it is what it is. Um my question is then, so you mentioned David Berglass 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_00:Well, I just bought the old Piannik deck. 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, who's a very 70s-looking guy. Uh, so to him and his hair, I owe um I owe that. So yeah, again, I would it's such a simple idea. So I would bypass all the uh clever modern ones and just go back to the original Piatnik ESP deck. It's in there.
SPEAKER_02: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_00:Number seven, I've put the um the three again. I'm sorry, these are all mine, um, but uh it's the stuff I know. So the three card trick that starts the devil's picture book download, um, which uh again was my so well. So what I used to do, I used to do close up magic round 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, someone I'd 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 it was born out of watching Tom Mullocker. 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 card trick with three people and him around a table. 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 while like ACAN, as I said, but the premise of it's about your decisions from the word go. Those are the 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 let's 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 the and then so that was great because I could play with that over the years that I uh that I did it. Um, and it's sort of I just put all of the sort of sleight 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 wasn't really like that. Um apart from card on the box. I used to do a card on the box, I suppose. That would be another kind of um sleight of handy sort of uh premise. Um, but yeah, that so it's on the devil's picture book. Um it's it's long, but it's like and the reason why I'm keeping it is that it it's um it's a really handy go-to thing. If you've got some people that want to see a trick, you've got a deck of cards, that that that's it, and it's like a it's almost like an act in it in itself. So it would it would stand me well. You know, if I was only gonna have this small number of tricks to do in the future, it would I'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 here, but it would uh it would also give me that too. So yeah, my three-card trick. Not not much of a story around it, but my I'm just 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. Uh a group of people sat there and and two of them were loving it. And this other guy who was being really nice was like, he was like, I don't I I don't really sorry, I don't really. And they're like, no, you can't. You that's the card you picked. Yeah, no, I know, but I'm not really following well, the card you picked, it's under the it's under the whatever, or it's it's changed to your card. And him being like, Yeah, I know, I'm 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, so I don't really understand what he just didn'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 he somebody might be sitting there just not really um just not really getting it. Like there is a 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. So 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.
SPEAKER_02:Well, so I think some people we 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 for whatever reason, something just doesn't click. And I do think it 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 what's that hand doing, and where that's where's that going now, and how's he trying to catch me out, and what's he trying to do? So sometimes I think we just get it.
SPEAKER_00:I've I find that when I've been brought up on stage to watch a trick, to take part in the 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 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 and um so many other things going on. Um but I did stow it away as a useful possible half method for something, you know. Maybe maybe the person up on stage is I mean, A, 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 create 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 of you know, a spectator just being like a warm prop is that's and that's sort of it. That's the end of their that's the end of their role. But actually, there is this other interesting thing whereby what the sort of relationship that you have with them, whether it's um you know funny and playful, or whether it's sort of intimidating, or whether you're um, you know, in showman, someone picks up the phone and gets hypnotized and is whisped backstage and strange, and then they come out and they're showing the 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. If they're just another person that's picking a card or inspecting a thing, or you know, perhaps being the the the butt of some jokes. I mean, it's you know, it's it's a it's a real shame. You know, you've really got a you're putting a proper 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 at 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 uh it is helpful.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's uh really a good choice for number seven, but it does lead us on to 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 it wait give us a clue. So is it from a show or is it from a project or book?
SPEAKER_00:It's from a show. Okay, stage, in fact.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, the ending of Enigma is phenomenal, but a personal favourite, 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 of the the gorilla switch. That a personal favourite from being in the audience, and obviously I was uh young, very young, and it was one of the first of your shows that I'd seen. So that moment was just mind-blown. I you just can't see it coming.
SPEAKER_00:So that's very nice to hear. 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 there. Uh so yeah, that was that was really really good fun. And interestingly, um, when you get into the into Broadway, there's a m whole mad thing about unions. So you know, as 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 into 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 in exactly the same place I'd picked it up, and then we'd go and rehearse it again. The natural thing, because I 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 it was 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 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 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 this 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 had to, you know, took three times longer than it should. Anyway, yeah, that was a that was a mad thing. No, my final choice is coin in hand, uh, which um I always thought actually that I'd sort of uh not I, but we as a team had had invented, which may or may not be the case because Charles Gaukey had a similar plot around at the same time. And I honestly have no idea which one uh came first, but I remember we were working on um, 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. Something 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 um Brighton Pier, I remember, but it was it it was a really uh it 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 it was a very good opener to the the first show that I did, um, Darren Brown Live. Um it's how I opened my corporate act. I very rarely do any corporate acts, but when I 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 opener. I've no idea. But it so you know it may not be a much of a surprise to say it, but it is a really fun opening trick. Um, and over the years I have played with so many different ways of um 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, um, that was great. I could use those and have essentially other was outsourcing my um my uh my methods to other people that would uh make them. I could get them a lot cheaper than if I was gonna make them myself. Um so I've gone through all sorts of all sorts of ways of doing it, and um I'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 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 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 a an actor or a dancer or a singer or you know, or a magician, you you want to connect with a human being. You want to that's really what it's about. Um, and the trouble with magic is that everything you're doing is superhuman, so it really gets in the way uh um of of that, and it goes in the way of great drama and and And um affecting people the most because if they want to connect with a human and you're superhuman, then where's the where where are you sort of struggling? Like, where does that come into it? Um Teller's talking a lot uh spoken a lot about this um that you know 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 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. Um so and I remember in one show I did, the pen lid got stuck on them. I had a marker, those big fat markers we'd love to use, and the pen lid wouldn't come off. Um and uh 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 they it just happened to be reviewed that night, and the uh the reviewer made I think he died, he maybe maybe thought I did it on purpose, but just that the most human aspect in the show for him was when we couldn't get the lid off this pen. Um, 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. Um, and I remember watching Uri Geller do uh uh a show in Hardee, and um for a number of reasons, I did I sort of didn't really love the show, but a moment I really loved was when he had to put his glasses on to look at a 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 an escapologist struggles to escape, but that's not real, that's not like real life struggling. That's that's just 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 why magic shouldn't, but I think I think mentalism can and should. I think it's just not always done very very well. But um anyway, all of that is to say that failure is uh is so important. Um 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, um, 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 um tense moment and somebody sneezes and the audience laughs, it makes no sense to 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 and sort of sorry, that was an unfortunate moment, not your fault. Um make a joke about it, and then but then it's a real thing, you know. You couldn't get it that night because someone sneezed. Like, why wouldn't that make me fail? And all of that's so much more um interesting. I in um guess who, which was one of the, or guess whom, which is one of the tricks in an early show, uh, get four people up. And I think this was a note from Andy Nyman, uh 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 gonna work with you. And more than anything else, I have people um bring that up years later. I came up on stage and 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 gonna work with me? Or people saying, the night you did it, I saw a guy and he came up, and you could tell immediately, immediately it wasn't gonna work with them. 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 little 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. And so that question of it's gonna fail anyway. Like you've got whatever method you're using for it, it's gonna 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 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 anyway. Um uh I think is 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 to um 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 uh you 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, it's really you know, it's really interesting, I think.
SPEAKER_02: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, um, 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 the theatre is having that experience on that one night at that time.
SPEAKER_00:Um seeing a lot of musical theatre, in which case it's excruciating. Yes, it's all of them. Turn it back and it's just awful. It's one of Andy and my running, running uh jokes about that, the bad, the bad corpusing moment. But yes, but yeah, no, I I get your point. Yeah, no, it 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 pleasant moment and snaps them out. Well, one of the nicest things I've heard was from uh Jeremy Dyson, who co-wrote Ghost Stories and co-directed that, and wrote uh, of course, Legal Gentleman 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, 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 just and you've got to keep them in their seat. It's like they're just trying to just they're just about to sneak out. They're gonna 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. It's a 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.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's a great last choice, and I think you're right. I think a lot of people attribute to witch hand to you. Um, and I I I actually quite liked you had a version, if I guess it's not quite a witch hand, but you had a thing, uh, I think again it was on a pier with a a ring in a box, and it was just a uh it was uh basically like a witch 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.
SPEAKER_00:I love those. I love, love, love those simple plots. If it's one of these two things or one of these three things, 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 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 so 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 it, you know, I just I just I kept going. Um uh and kept winning, and that was that was 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, and it's 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. But that I is unfortunately the um the subtext. So uh it's not ideal from that point of view, but it's a very um, it's a really fun thing for uh as a premise, and it's yeah, sort of thing that's served me served me well over the years.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh, I was just gonna say, even throughout when you think about a lot of your shows, you have um shoe in a box, or or where is Darren Shoe, sorry, 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 download, uh well now it's a download, um, but on Get N Iman 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 and and intriguing when really it's just for 50-50.
SPEAKER_00:It's a 50-50, yeah. It's um, yeah. I mean, obviously they suffer from oh go on, do it again, do it again, okay. Do it again. So it does, it needs, it needs that, but it can work very well as a way into uh something. So I was on the Seth Myers uh late night show, whatever it is in the States, when I was doing um marketing stuff for the Broadway show, and the first round of that was here are two colours, one green, one yellow. I've always loved like that sort of coloured cards in mentalism that's slightly kind of 70s, um, just really low, low-tech stuff. So coloured 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 gang. On the other one, it says, but not this one. Um uh as then a way into a bigger thing. So you need to take it, they they don't sit very well on their own, because then you know you want to oh show okay, let me do that again, show it to me again. So that went into something else. So the the only other thing is how you then make it bigger and bigger and introduce. Oh, though it's Stephen Merchant as well. That was a routine on one of the TV shows with him choosing yes or no. Um, again, I think I've seen that trigger around a bit in the shops. Um uh so yeah, it's um it's 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 can create out of it.
SPEAKER_02:But that does bring us on to your two curveball items. So obviously you've had eight items overall, but now we're gonna 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_00:Right. Well, my first thought was the card at any number book. But actually, um I have settled for a book that doesn't exist quite yet. I think it's I think it's been almost written. Um and they're having trouble getting it out. But I'm looking forward to this very much. Uh and it's I don't know what it's called, but it's um gonna 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 the sort of um the bound volumes of that, uh 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, uh, I don't know if you know it's something that I've done on stage. Um, so that may mean that uh others are too. So you might have come across it. But uh, it's an effect where you would say, Um uh I'm gonna write down a number. Um one way of doing it, I'm gonna write down a number. Uh, 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, gentlemen 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 um woman, like where she's gonna be sat, what she looks like, what she's sat, 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? Um, and so that's Ted's, as as are a number, and anything he comes up with is just uh he was 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 is at the PEA, which is a member, paper exchangers anonymous, the Psychic Entertainers Association in um in America, and he did a couple of things there that were gorgeous anyway. I shouldn't say but um uh so I'm really looking forward to this book coming out. I wrote a little blurb print on the back, and that was a long time ago, and it hasn't arrived yet, uh, 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 proper mentalist would have ever uh heard of, I'm sure. Um so it's that. It doesn't, it doesn't exist yet, and I don't know what it's called, but it's Ted Kamilovich's book, his collected works or whatever they're whatever they're going to call it. Um that'll keep me going for a little while. I'll definitely read that. And the the last book that I've read actually was Eugene Burger's late posthumous um book, which I started and was really uh enjoying, and then we moved house and stuff, and um I've since I need to go back to it, it's in storage, but uh I very, very rarely read magic books nowadays. But Burglass, uh Eugene's uh the only two that I read over the last probably 20 years, but um Ted's one I'm really looking forward to.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that sounds great. It's nice to have something to that's not out yet that we can sort of keep our eyes out for. So a hundred percent, and and Eugene's book we've had before, um, and certainly in 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 gonna 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 gonna be passed on. It's all a bit um crazy, um, but amazing at the same time. It's a lovely uh 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 gonna go. We've had nothing too uh scandalous so far. So, what what are you gonna go for?
SPEAKER_00:It was really important to me to end this list with something dull. Um so uh I took this question to mean again. I so I'm 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? Um a thing that I cannot tour without or I 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 traveller during the two years of uh doing showman, um and it's largely a journal of that. Uh but with previous shows I've uh written, I wrote um happy and um all I think all well, certainly every year I think when I've toured, I've been rising. So um I don't think I could do the tour without that, and it's the most wonderful sort of uh 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 that's why I have to go and see physios and things because you're going from hunched like that, ta-ta-da! And then you uh you hurt yourself um as you get older. So it's my laptop, I'm afraid. I mean, I cannot think of a worse answer, but um, I really struggle to think of what what else really, what what things I use in magic performances that are but I not really nothing um came to mind. It was a very tricky one to answer, but I knew the honest thing was that I couldn't imagine being without is something that would allow me to um write, and that's always been the the other half of the touring experience for me. So I'm so sorry to finish on that, but um I'm afraid that is God's honest answer.
SPEAKER_02:No, I think that's a brilliant thing to have put down. Um, and it's certainly something that I think after reading your book um and previous books as well, I think that people would be very happy with that. I think uh even on a desert island, I'm sure you have lots of interesting things to uh put forward to the community.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a really um really interesting thing to think through all this. I and I it's also lovely because I I haven't done close-up for so long. Um I every now and then something will make me 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're sort of uh in your blood and have been have been for a while. That makes me uh makes me miss it too. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02: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, um, including your book. Obviously, if people want to find out how to get the book, where can they go to?
SPEAKER_00:Uh well I'm selling it privately at the moment. Um so I'm selling it on my on my website. I sort of um I've taken taken some time out after after Sherman's. I've been mainly painting. Um and I sell prints of my painting on my my sites are my size as well, and this book. Um so uh we've just launched the second printing of it. Um the first one sold out really quickly, and I think it was hard, it was hard for us to keep up with the demand and that creation. So we're a bit like we've got more of an infrastructure this time. Um so really it's uh it's that. Other than that, 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 or 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 uh I can think of. I'm just getting my head around what the new book. will be or shall be doing uh shall be probably writing next year.
SPEAKER_02:Oh I feel like that's a little exclusive that there's going to be a a new one coming out. That's good.
SPEAKER_00:Just just Yeah I don't think this will be a magician's one. I think my uh I think uh it was a I kind of put everything I could into notes from a fellow traveller uh and it is big I mean you you you know it's a it's a it's a big it's a big book but I put it 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 and it was very nice to just um have this sort of organic experience if things were going wrong in the show I'd be like ah this would be interesting to put in the book uh tomorrow or I'd be writing stuff and working things out and 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. So it was a very um it's it's uh 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 um having done it like literally hundreds and hundreds of times night after night 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 uh 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 had slightly uh set me off kilt 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 I might not be something that people go through much because they may not be doing as many shows 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 as affect doesn't matter how often you do a show whether you're doing it for 12 people above above a pub or you know 3,000 people in a big theater like these are it's the sort of it's the same considerations, the same experiences um and the same things that are important to get right and I think even more important in a in a um if you're doing if you're putting a small show together because I think there's 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 it's filled with this potential. And I remember I used to watch Magic Gala shows I remember that feeling a lot in between that an actor would come do the thing and go and maybe you're like okay they're 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 gonna come out what's 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. 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 uh much more sort of you know visible and it feels more exclusive and you know there's a a level of that feeling which you might not get if you sat at the back of you know a couple of thousand people in a big theatre um uh and yet again it sort of gets missed because as a performer you might just be thinking about the tricks uh which is understandable but they're really only um 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 but you don't really quite trust the experience of the people that are writing it. So um I hope at least I've got you know uh uh 20 years of whatever touring under my belt that it made it feel like these are these are things that are just worth um worth passing on and people can you know make use of it as they as they wish.
SPEAKER_02:It's a phenomenal book it it is one that everyone should really have especially you know if you're someone who wants to start putting on a uh larger show there are things and considerations in that book that very few people are ever gonna think about before they step into that arena um and I will also just say a separate book of yours which I loved was um happy and subsequently a little bit happy I think it was either a little bit happier or a little bit happier um which was like the the uh uh a shortened version of it but it it's still great nonetheless but that was a really interesting book as well and that was sort of um for those who who don't know about it is sort of your stoic view of happiness and um 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 uh and it really makes you think about things from a completely different perspective it's it's really good. Oh thank you thank you very much indeed and thank you for having me it's been so thank you for coming along um and make sure you pick up Darren's book uh but with that being said we will let Darren go now because we've had him for a very very long time um so thank you again Darren it's been amazing to hear your uh uh choice of ultimate tricks that you would have for forever and ever thank you lots of love and uh see you again 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