Derren Brown: Archive
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From: xmindcontrolx
Date: Sun Jan 13, 2002 5:57pm
Subject: Review Mind Control 3
Ref earlier message please contact me on email
otherwise your queries may get lost amongs all the other
messages, Thanks Mindcontroller
Derren Brown: Mind
Control III
Channel 4
1st January 2002 - 1
hour
Programme Consultants Richard McDougall & Andy Nyman
Executive Producer & Devised by Andrew O'Connor
Producer
Anthony Owen
Director Jeremy Wooding
Star Wars
fans (and this will make no sense if you're not) must
have taken great delight when Derren uttered the
wonderful line "This is the dog you're looking for" as in
Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi's "These aren't the Droids you're
looking for." Whether or not this was intentional I don't
know but it worked for me and it worked for Ben in
evading the clutches of the evil Empire, and it certainly
worked for Derren at the Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium -
turning losing betting slips into winning betting slips
at the pay-out counter with his "mind control."
Show number three already, and it was only a year ago
that we saw the first. The format was much the same as
its predecessors, tightly paced (perhaps too tight in
places - I wanted a little more time to see Derren's
pleasure in "getting it right"), slickly edited, moody,
and highly inventive.
The show opened in
London's Carnaby Street and proceeded to jump from
location to location, each time presenting a different
aspect of "mind control." This format is so much fresher
than a typical studio setting and also means that
nearly everything that the viewer sees is perceived as
being "spontaneous." For me magicians "pre-show" and
"off camera" arguments don't really come into it. You
might as well take advantage of the medium that you're
working in. When I hear magicians argue "but you can't do
'such and such' live" I feel, to be frank, that they
don't quite get it. The opposite is also true. There
are things that you can do live that don't work on
Television - it's a two way thing. Causing an audience to
think that something "is" when in reality it "isn't" is
what magicians and mind-readers are supposed to do...
it's their job!! And back to pre show - try performing
your linking rings without a little "pre-show" work on
one of them!
When I reviewed Derren's shows
before I didn't want to "list tricks" and I don't really
want to this time. Suffice to say that clearly a lot
of thought went into the construction of these
routines - and nearly all resulted in very good
television.
The entire production team should be really
proud of completing a third show in what traditionally
has been viewed as the hardest form of "magic" to
make truly entertaining. Hopefully we will see Derren
take to the stage later on this year. His live
close-up work is stunning and it will be very interesting
to see how he develops this into a full-blown
theatre presentation.
Show 3 picture clip,
uploaded in photo's. Maybe some help to you who have
already used them on this page and your own webpages,
Enjoy!!!
To be
continued....
Mindcontroller
