Tonight we go and see Derren Brown’s 2007 live tour entitled Derren Brown Mind Reader (review to follow). I managed to find a copy of the cover of this years tour programme and it looks great. It’s a wonderful tribute to the 1920’s Egyptian Hall style posters that I love. Take a look at this Carter The Great poster that it bears more than a passing resemblance to:

• Don’t deal with Derren Brown.
• Don’t go to the United Kingdom.
• If you suddenly find yourself in the UK, and Derren approaches, don’t look at him.
• If you cannot escape him, do not let him touch you.
• If he manages to touch you, At least keep him from taking hold of your wrist.
• If he manages to take hold of your wrist, for the love of baby Jesus don’t let him put your hand over your face.
• Even if he doesn’t touch you, don’t let him not touch you either.

So, we are three episodes into the new Derren Brown TV series Trick or Treat. I must say I’ve been a little disappointed. As you know I am a big fan of Derren’s but I am just finding this series a little too gimmicky. He’s relying too much on the hypnosis side of his act for my taste, and I can’t help thinking that the subjects of his tricks and treats are just playing along. I’ve always been a bit suspicious of hypnosis generally, and my gut feeling is that a mixture of “wanting to please” and “expected social behaviour” accounts for a lot. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the contract that the subjects sign at the beginning of each episode actually says “just play along with me will you, and I’ll put you on the telly”; this after all is a technique Derren has been known to use before (see the description in the chapter on Zamiels Card in Derren’s pre-fame book Pure Effect - a must read for all Derren fans). It’s not all bad news though, the bits where he plays tricks on the celebrities has been great, I particularly liked the League of Gentlemen versus Razor-bladed chocolate rolls, and the general styling of the show is superb.

And so onto the ambigram. I thought the way Derren was forcing the Trick or Treat cards was really obvious, but I’ve read several times on t’internet how people are totally puzzled by it. One post was saying that he’d frozen the video several times, and was convinced the Treat card was picked. I don’t feel I’m ruining the surprise with this one in saying that each card is actually an ambigram (or more correctly a perceptual shift ambigram) allowing Derren to show each card as either a Trick or a Treat. Derren will no doubt come clean on this trick before the series ends, as he can’t expect us not to notice.

Under the guise of a motivational seminar and a follow-up documentary, can Derren Brown persuade any of his group of responsible, middle-management businessmen and women to steal £100,000 in an armed robbery?