Derren Brown: Archive
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From: uberman_21
Date: Mon Mar 10, 2003 12:22am
Subject: Sunday Telegraph 9/03/03 Can this man read minds?
Derren Brown has been astonishing audiences with his apparent
telepathic powers. Is it just a trick? John Preston spends a
bewilderingaday with the celebrated 'psychological magician'.
Let me make one thing quite clear at the outset. I am not, I think,
a particularly crecdlous person. Nor do I generally allow strangers
to go rooting about in the dark dungeons of my subconscious.
Frankly, I prefer those dungeons to remain properly bolted - to me
or anyone else. Especially me, come to think of it. Bearing all this
in mind, let us step bravely into the unknown.
I am sitting in the Bristol flat of the 'psychological magician'
Derren Brown. All around the walls are stuffed animals, including a
moose, a fox and a turkey. There is also - unstuffed - a parrot
which fltters about and occasionally alights on my knee. Brown has
asked me to write down three memories from childhood on three pieces
of paper. One memory is to do with an activity I enjoyed; one a
hobby I had; and one the name of a friend.
On my first piece of paper I have written 'Athletics'. On my second
piece of paper, not altogether accurately, given that the only thing
I can remeber making out of wood is a breadboard, I have
written 'Carpentry'. And for the name of my childhood friend, I have
put down his surname: 'Quartermaine'.
After I have done this I fold up my three pieces of paper and drop
them into a bowl. Whereupon Brown, a small and mildly demonic-
looking man dressed entirely in black, picks out each one in turn,
sniffs it and adopts a thoughtful expression.
"Now look into my eyes" he says. "And concentrate very hard."
There is no sound, except for occasional ominous plopping noises
coming from the non-speaking end of the parrot. First up is the
activity. "It's something to do with...yes, with running. But not
just running. More general than that. Lots of different activities.
Running and jumping. Is it Athletics?" At which I give a grudging
nod.
Now comes the hobby. "Mmm. Wood is involved definitely. Join.
Joinery? No, not joinery - but something like that. How about
Carpentry?" I nod again, even more grudgingly.
Finally, it's the name of my friend - the clincher. "Look at me
again and really concentrate now. Does it...does it begin with a Q?
Now, syllables. THree, I think. Is there a T in the middle? Ah, is
it like the name of that science fiction character? What was he
called? Quatermass? But not quite Quatermass, no. Is it
Quartermaine?"
So how does he do it? Well i'd like to be able to tell you, but my
journalistic integrity prevents me from doing so. All right, I don't
know. All I do know is that Derren Brown is brilliant inducing
gaping astonishment in his audiences. On his current Channel 4
series, Derren Brown: Mind Control, he guesses someone's PION
number, makes a bookie pay out on losing bets and tells a man that
he plays golf, used to be a disc-jockey and has three terriers,
simply by touching his hands.
Yet with brilliance comes a certain amount of oddity. Or quite a lot
of oddity in Brown's case. Certainly, his flat is one of the
strangest places I have been. Along with the stuffed animals and the
parrot, there's a table neatly laid for two in the corner of his
living-room. Nothing odd about this - except that Brown lives on his
own is apparently single. Consequently, there's a rather creepy Miss
Havisham feel to it. Propped up on a small lecternin front of one of
the place-settings is a volume of Nietsche - author of The Will to
Power.
Various paintings by Brown himself are very much in evidence - good,
if sinister, squidgy faced caricatures of his heroes, including Jack
Nicholson and Bertrand Russell. There's also a self-portrait of
Brown looking sly and lecherous.
In the loo - that infallible pointer to the private self - an open
copy of George Bernard Shaw's Music Criticism Volumen Two is resting
on top of the cistern, while in his monastic-looking bedroom various
felt-tipped reminders have been written on a board besides his
single bed. "Shoes are a bit gay", reads one. It's not clear if this
refers to a particular pair of shoes or is a more general
observation.
What's hard to gauge is how much of this is done for effect. But
while Brown's appearance - droopy moustache and tufty beard to go
with his all black garb - suggests a high level of self
consciousness, his domestic trappings testament to a more private
exoticism.
It's all a far cry from Purley where Brown was born 31 years ago -
the son of a lifeguard father and amother who once worked as a
model. As a child, he says he had no particular interest in magic.
When he was 18, however, he went to see a show given by a stage
hypnotist and came out convinced that this was what he wanted to do
with his life: "Above all, I loved the idea of being awestruck."
To be continued.....
