Derren Brown: Archive
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From: glyncoy
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2002 12:50am
Subject: Re: Subtle as a brick.
"I could pick up Annemann's book, buy the
blackboard et al. and call myself a 'mentalist'. It does not
mean that i am any good, or that there is any 'depth'
to my work, but i could entertain never the less.
"
Very true. There are lots of magicians and the
occasional mentalist out there giving this branch of
performance art a bad name. Derren Brown is an excellent
performner but he hasn't always been. It took 10 years of
professional performing for him to reach these dizzy heights.
3 or 4 years ago he didn't stand out from the
crowd.
"If all i was interested in was the people on TV, I
would not waste my time reading"
My point was
meant to be that there are some superb performers out
there who you won't have heard of unless you move in
the right circles. These guys are selling out
theatres in the US, but don't publish material for the
masses to read nor appear on mainstream TV. Marc Salem
springs to mind, who's working on Broadway at the moment.
His style is very different to Derren's but has an
impact on his audiences which is just as
strong.
"Here is a simple question, "how many practicing
'mentalists' are better than Derren"?"
I don't think
that's a fair question, because it's inherently
subjective. Let me ask you a question - apart from Derren
Brown, how many mentalists have you seen perform? Have
you ever seen Andy Nyman in action (he was offered
the Mind Control frontman job before Derren but
turned it down). What about Graham Jolley - again,
different style but one of the best entertainers I've ever
come across.
Don't get me wrong, Derren Brown
has developed into a first rate performer but he does
have the benefit of TV exposure. Just because he is
more visible does not make him "better" than other
mentalists. There are plenty of good performers out there
(and bad ones!).
| Replies | Author | Yahoo! ID | Date | Size |
| 393: Re: Subtle as a brick. | on_a_quackhandle | on_a_quackhandle | Mon 18/02/2002 | 2 KB |
| 394: Re: Subtle as a brick. | glyncoy | glyncoy | Mon 18/02/2002 | 1 KB |
| 406: Re: Subtle as a brick. | bingomite | bingomite | Mon 18/02/2002 | 2 KB |
| 420: Re: Subtle as a brick. | reversailles | reversailles | Mon 18/02/2002 | 2 KB |
| 423: Re: Subtle as a brick. | on_a_quackhandle | on_a_quackhandle | Mon 18/02/2002 | 3 KB |
