Derren Brown – the great mentalist
Last night, Vee and I joined our friends Eric and Cindy to attend the Shaftesbury Theatre in central London for a show mounted by the British illusionist Derren Brown. It is called “Svengali” and it is the fifth of his theatre tours.
Brown asks his audience not to reveal the nature of the show to others and, of course, I will respect that in this blog posting. Suffice to say that he is a consummate performer.
He gives a fascinating display of talents that are so extraordinary that you could believe that he has supernatural powers, except that you know that it all a brilliantly clever illusion and he never claims otherwise.
But I confess that I didn’t enjoy the show as much as my companions. I couldn’t get over the sense of being manipulated, although of course everyone there is by definition paying to be misled and happy about it.
A while ago now, I read Derren Brown’s book “Tricks Of The Mind” and found it, like him, entertaining, scatological and somewhat odd. I reviewed it here.