The Most Powerful Man In The World
(cr: google images)
I think I maybe mentioned to a few people over the past week or two that I was suuuper excited about this awesome show that I was going to see!!! Well I've finally gotten round to writing about it!!!! Only...I can't actually write about it...since I don't want to give away anything that happens in the show...just incase anybody from the UK who might be going to see it, reads this...not that it would ruin the show...but it really would take some of the magic out of it! Instead...I'm just going to try and convince you all to fall in love with the star of said show...Derren Brown!!!
It's actually pretty hard to try and explain to anyone just who/what Derren Brown is...basically he's an entertainer that performs tricks such that a mind-reader, illusionist, magician, psychic, medium or hypnotist might perform...the thing that makes Derren different from any of them...he doesn't claim to be any of them.
In fact, he's an atheist and a skeptic (and has even shown that most of the above professions as frauds). The reason he can do all of these things is purely because he has enhanced mental abilities...not because he's superhuman or anything, but just because he's incredibly clever and managed to train his mental abilities. He has a fantastic memory, he's a master of body language and he can manipulate people to the point where he can tell them what to think while making them believe it was an independent thought. He's seriously unbelievable!! But what's even more incredible about him is that he doesn't claim to be anything special, most of his tricks he will explain how he did them - but surprisingly that only makes it more amazing because you know how incredible his skills are.
He's had a number of TV shows (the most well-known being the one where he predicted the National Lottery results) which were incredibly awesome and really show off his skills. Sadly he's not really very well known outside of England. All of his shows are available to watch for free on youtube...but since it's through Channel 4's official youtube, I don't think they're available outside of the UK :( I had a good search round and managed to find a couple of videos (some pretty bad quality) worth sharing though. Please do check them out!!!! (Click on the links in the bulletpoints). And then if you like them try hunting round for his TV shows (I would start with Mind Control, or Trick of the Mind).
- Derren manipulates Simon Pegg's thoughts
- Pick-pocketing
- Derren buys things with paper
- 'Guessing' Professions
- Mind-reading and manipulating movement
- Derren on being predictable
This is really just a taste of the things he can do. Please, please watch the videos if you get chance (I don't own any of the videos - just found them on vimeo/youtube) they're only a few minutes long and they're awesome. If you want to see more there are more clips here: https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialDerren/videos?sort=dd&view=0&page=1 (I hope you can see these outside the UK). Also, if you're interested in learning more about the things Derren does/has done, you can look him up on Wikipedia :D
So anyways, that's Derren Brown and he's awesome. And with all his skills at manipulation I seriously think he's one of the most incredible people in the world - and if he wanted to be, he could easily be the most powerful!