RoysWorld

Billy and me are really enjoying the Sorcerer’s Apprentice on BBC1. The premise is that 14 apprentices are taught the art of magic by magician Max Somerset, whittling them down to a single apprentice by the end of the series. Sanders the Great has a good set of reviews of the series for you to enjoy.

Check out this great new magic website SandersTheGreat. It has only just gone live, but already has some interesting magic news and some pretty cool vintage magic adverts.

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:

I’ve noticed a lot more chatter about Derren from “over the pond” recently, as it appears the Americans are starting to notice him. needcoffee.com has published “7 Safety Tips For Dealing With Derren Brown” that made me laugh. The article has justification for each tip, but in summary they are:

• 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.

Further to my post about the Derren Brown tribute album Inside Your Ears, they have released a video for their song Mind Control. It’s quite funny. Even funnier though is the full length show the video is taken from.

OK. This is weird. The members of the Official Derren Brown Forum have created a music CD called Inside Your Ears dedicated to their favourite bearded mentalist. The CD is available for download and includes such classics as “12 Bar Brown”, “Loaded Gun” and my personal favourite “Yo Derren”.
You can’t make it up.

No suprise that Derren Brown’s latest offering Heist has been criticised, this time by the GMB a trade union representing security workers.

I would criticise it on the basis that I didn’t think it was very good. Come on Derren, you can do WAY better than that.

Oh and by the way the Fortean Times agrees with me – read their review here.

The latest Derren TV show is “the Heist” (scheduled to be shown Wednesday January 4th 2006 at 9pm – but subject to change).

The pitch from the man himself is:

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?

You can read more about it, including an interview with Derren on his website

Derren Brown has produced an alternative version of his website. It is visually stunning, and in places quite disturbing. It is a pretty interesting way to present a website, and goes against everything usability guys go on and on about. Navigation is particularly unclear, but this gives the whole site an almost game-like quality. Loads of spooky sounds and subliminal images keep popping up all over the place. I really like it. Now go and check it out – NOTE gratuitous use of Flash.