Derren Brown - An Evening of Wonders

[AJ]

Just watched this last night on C4's watch online and thought it was brilliant.

I enjoyed the first half of his Something Wicked that he did a year or two ago but the walking across glass and the nail up the nose was a little weird for me. I enjoyed the whole of this show though, even the moving table thing which I've seen all before. He seems to have really upped his game on this one. He talks at 90 miles an hour the entire show and you just don't have time to figure out what he's doing or how he's doing it. I know there's no real psychic or magic ability but his showmanship and unique skills have to be admired

Has anyone else seen it? If not, I'd deffo recommend it. It's still on there at http://www.channel4.com/watch_online.

[Steeb]

I caught this when it was shown last month, and I have to say, I second the idea of everyone watching it. He really is such a fine showman. There's few, if any, quite at his level at the minute. Saying that, the Gorilla part was a real 'OK, what the FUCK?!' moment. The Oracle Act was really cool too.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

This isn't the one where he walks across glass and does the nail trick and the entire newspaperthing with the audience? That one was amazing, simple as. There's no other word to describe it. I still think he's as good as any guy in the business. The thing is, he's not there trying a load of magic bullshit, it's just so different and brilliant. I really don't know how he does some of the things he does. I remember his betting scam thing about the 'system', although the end came across as a let down but I understood the point in the end.

Don't think I've seen this one, will check it out for sure.

[AJ]

Nah this is the newer one. I think it's better than Something Wicked (the one with the broken glass).

TSSTB, yes! I was gonna mention that but didn't wanna spoil it in case no-one had seen it. Since I watched it on catch-up I went back the few seconds to watch that again. Blatantly obvious on second viewing but still, loved it.

There are a lot of theories and discussion floating around about how he did it all. Even when you're in the know (which spoils it a little, I guess, like when you first learned about behind the scenes in wrestling) it's still damn impressive.

[Liam]

I love Derren Brown's stuff, watch all of it when I'm around and able to, and caught this. The guy is a genius, funny patter on the whole as well which helps, and emminently watchable.

I've seen most of his specials, although none of them matched up to the Russian Roulette one he did.

[IAceI]

Marcus Brigstocke sums this sort of thing up nicely when he was on Room 101. Applying to Derren Brown - he's good because he doesn't try and convince you it's magic, he tells you it's psychological, he shows you - I didn't catch the show but I did love Something Wicked and his Trick or Treat stuff. If he was there trying to tell you it was all abilities he received during an eclipse or something - then yeah, it'd probably annoy me more. But the fact that he's there for the whole show and he's subtly putting stuff into your mind without you realising makes you really take notice when its finished. I'll try and catch this one sometime because I'm sure it'll be just as good if not better.

Same kinda with Tommy Cooper and his magic. But like, he'd make it purposely go wrong, then suddenly make it work with a bit of a twist and that's what I enjoyed. Whereas I'm less impressed by the whole "put a card on top and I will find it when shuffling the pack" because I know exactly how that's done so it's a bit dull.