Derren Brown's Blog, page 2

Response to the street photography competition on Instagram was sensational. Over 500 of you sent in pictures, and it’s been a real joy checking the feed and being surprised by […]

The post INSTAGRAM PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS appeared first on Derren Brown.

Response to the street photography competition on Instagram was sensational. Over 500 of you sent in pictures, and it’s been a real joy checking the feed and being surprised by […]

The post WINNERS OF INSTAGRAM COMPETITION appeared first on Derren Brown.

To celebrate the release of ‘Meet The People With Love’ – my street photography book, I’m giving away – GIVING AWAY!! AM I SIMPLY MAD??!! three signed copies of the […]

The post Instagram Street Photography Contest appeared first on Derren Brown.

Just to say that my US show ‘Secret’ (directed by and co-written with the great Andy Nyman and just as great Andrew O’Connor), after completing a jammy jam-packed run at […]

Derren appeared on the popular US daytime Today Show with Megyn Kelly to discuss The Push and try a social compliance experiment with the studio audience… Could you be manipulated […]

Derren Brown’s appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where he simultaneously reads James’ mind and persuades him to snack on a lightbulb… 

 

Derren Brown, the multi-award winning master of mind control and psychological illusion, is bringing his latest sensational show UNDERGROUND back to UK and Irish theatres in 2018.

 

From April 3 to July 5 2018, Brown will be enthralling audiences with his 2017 ‘Best of’ hit show, UNDERGROUND in which he fuses together a collection of his favourite work to create a jaw-dropping experience of magical genius.

 

Derren revealed: “Underground was originally written for audiences in other countries who hadn’t seen me before. It meant finessing and re-visiting past pieces and seeing them with fresh eyes.

 

I sat down with my two co-writers and directors and we thought – ‘What would make the best possible Derren Brown show?’ None of us were sure what the UK would make of it, but the resulting show felt so good, and met with such a great response when warming it up in London, that we decided to tour it here too. The reviews have been astonishing, and people who’ve seen all the shows have said they love being surprised by them again, and those who don’t know me so well are getting to see the best material for the first time. It’s a huge, huge joy to perform”.

 

This is the second leg of the UNDERGROUND tour, direct from the West End production at the Playhouse Theatre, which ran for thirty-five packed out performances in September & October 2017. The sixty-three day tour will embrace Dublin and Cork and include Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Norwich Hull, Canterbury, Nottingham, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Dartford and Southend.

 

DERREN BROWN: UNDERGROUND is presented by Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, Derren Brown and Paul Sandler for Vaudeville Productions Ltd. and David Binder. It is directed by Andrew O’Connor & Andy Nyman and written by Andy Nyman, Andrew O’Connor & Derren Brown. Setting by Will Bowen, Lighting Design by Charlie Morgan Jones. General Manager is John Dalston.

 

TOUR DATES & VENUES

(Check back soon if there isn’t a tickets link at your preferred below – we’ll be adding each link as soon as it goes on sale!)

 

LIVERPOOL*

April 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Royal Court Theatre

Tel: 0151 709 4321

TICKETS

 

EASTBOURNE*

April 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Devonshire Park Theatre

Tel: 01323 412 000


TICKETS

 

HULL

April 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

New Theatre

Tel: 01482 300306

 

NOTTINGHAM

April 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

Theatre Royal

Tel: 0115 989 5555

TICKETS

 

CARDIFF

May 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Welsh Millennium Centre

Tel: 029 2063 6464

TICKETS

 

DUBLIN*

May 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Gaiety Theatre

Tel: +353 818 719 388

TICKETS

 

BELFAST

May 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Grand Opera House

Tel: 028 9024 1919

TICKETS

 

CORK*

May 
28, 29, 30, 31

Opera House

Tel: +353 21 427 0022

TICKETS

 

GLASGOW*

June 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Theatre Royal

Tel: 0844 871 7647

 

BOURNEMOUTH*

June 11, 12,13

Pavilion Theatre

Tel: 01202 055660

TICKETS

 

DARTFORD*

June 14,15, 16

Orchard Theatre

Tel: 01322 220000

TICKETS

 

NORWICH

June 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

Theatre Royal

Tel: 01603 630000

TICKETS

 

CANTERBURY*

June 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Marlowe Theatre

Tel: 01227 787787

TICKETS

 

SOUTHEND

July 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Cliffs Pavilion

Tel: 01702 351135

TICKETS

 

*On sale from today – you may need to call the box office if no ticket link has been posted yet

 

(Not suitable for under 12s)

The death of Eugene Burger, a legend of modern magic, has just been announced.

 

Much will be said in the magic community about Eugene’s passing. I cannot think of another figure in our strange and wonderful world who was (and is) as loved, who loved as much back, or who truly gave himself up to the stuff of mystery. He inspired a generation of close-up magicians – including me, very directly – and will continue to do so. When I first met him as a novice, he taught me a great lesson in how to make magic feel special. We later became friends, and though I lived too far away to count myself amongst his close companions, we would see each other when we could and had a lot of love for each other.

 

Yet there is something else surrounding his death that has struck me, which may be passed over amidst the eulogies, and may even sound a little strange to say now. And that is, that his death was somehow suitable.

 

As a magician, Eugene was a master storyteller. His magic hooks you in because it weaves a narrative around the possibility of deep mystery. In life we weave stories continuously: in order to navigate the infinite data source of our environment we must edit and delete and reduce an active, messy world to a neat story that makes sense of what’s going on. We tell ourselves stories of who we are, how we got to where we are, what we want, what other people want, what they think of us. If we are mindful, we might try to see our story-telling capacity at work, and remind ourselves that we are continuously twisting the facts to fit whatever story has gripped us. We should of course own our narratives, but we might also choose to be aware that they remain just that, otherwise they have a tendency to own us.

 

Eugene seemed to be a man in charge of his own story, yet mindful of its contingency within a world of deep mystery. When we are not, we are usually beset by needs and forever chase external approval and goals that continually elude us. By comparison, Eugene lived with a minimum of possessions (he knew little of the collecting mania which drives many of us in our field) and seemed to have no particular ambitions beyond the grateful enjoyment of the here and now. If you know his work but never met him, he was exactly as you’d want him to be, and then some. I found this almost too good to be true: I wanted to understand how the love for magic could continue to run so deep in this brilliant, philosophical man, without a hint of the weary cynicism of which we are all guilty. How it was to find his only family in the magic community. But throughout, there was only the warmth and ease of a man very at home with himself and his world. I never felt even a hint of the bitterness one might expect from a magic legend who remained more or less unknown to the public at large. There was no suggestion of jadedness, or pretension, or the bewildering egomania that pervades our craft. He had of course his distinctive look, but he was never affected, never contrived (after all, he always had that look: I imagine he emerged with beard and garb fully dressed from the womb, greeting a world that would come to adore him with a rasping basso tremendo). The aura that surrounded Eugene (on stage as well as off) was one of twinkling mischief, of naughtiness, of gravitas without solemnity. Perhaps most powerfully he carried that air about him that the most charismatic actors often bring to their parts: that of I have a secret. It was irresistible.

 

He appeared to me a man profoundly at home with himself; one who had made a comfortable space for whatever demons still undoubtedly announced themselves on occasion. And unheard of for a magician: he didn’t try to impress. But his masterstroke of story-telling was that of his ending.

 

Mystery lies in ambiguity. Eugene said towards his end that he was excited to finally meet the Big M Mystery. How profoundly that statement must have moved his friends; how beautifully a lifelong reverence for mystery served him at the end. It is in our last chapter of life that the importance of authoring ones narrative is paramount. When a book or film ends, it makes sense of what has come before. When a life ends, there is no meaning: often only absurdity. We have to find that meaning for ourselves. It is hard to do this if we see death as a terrifying stranger rather than as a companion, and nothing in our culture encourages us to make our peace with its ever-presence. Since we proudly stripped away superstitions from our thinking a few hundred years ago, we have all but lost touch with any cultural narratives that provide a sense of meaning around death. Hence the proliferation of mediums and psychics, who step in to provide some tawdry semblance of significance. Eugene’s séances by comparison offered only further mystery.

 

So we scrabble blindly when death approaches, and in doing so, we often become cameos in our own stories. The main roles are given over to doctors or loved ones who make decisions for us and above all try to prolong life, which is quite different from preserving its quality. The only narrative the dying person is offered today is that he or she is ‘fighting a brave battle’, and this only helps the healthy onlookers feel a little better. For the terminally ill person it is an imposition, which adds pressure to seem brave for everyone else’s sake. And of course it presupposes eventual failure.

 

I could not read his mind, despite the promises of our professions, but by all reports Eugene died as a man in charge of his own story. I spoke to one of his dearest friends (and doctor) soon after his passing: I am told Eugene had nothing but deep gratitude for a life that surpassed all his expectations. Unattached to possessions, he adored the hospital rooms with which he had become quite familiar, marvelling at the food and how well he was looked after. Mortality had become a comfortable theme for him, and when a cancer diagnosis came he declined to fight it with chemotherapy. Pneumonia arrived instead, and continuing the theme of a life well lived, he took a quiet ownership of death too. A lifetime of loving and of gathering people together meant that he finished his life in the way he wished. He died very well.

 

Finally, it’s rare one gets to choose ones family, but Eugene was able to do this. And this family of close friends will now miss him terribly. Yet nothing that burns so brightly is snuffed out easily. Eugene deeply affected so many people: those dearest loved ones and partners in magic, his friends, his students, those who have learnt from his books and videos, the audiences who have loved his performances, and the magic world which will honour him. Eugene knew that the self is not fixed but malleable, ambiguous and situated: it extends into the world. So we should honour this. He is not absent: we can still find him in all of those people. When we die, we leave behind an afterglow in the hearts and minds of those who loved us. Eugene’s afterglow will be felt for a very long time.

 

Those who were closest to him will recall and settle in their reveries of Eugene; they will now and then feel what it would be like to be him, to laugh at what he would laugh at, to react or raise an eyebrow or ponder a thought in his way. When they do, they will recreate in themselves the particular pattern, the unique twinkling consciousness that defined him. The more sympathetically they knew him, the more him it will be. And maybe this is where we find the Big M: perhaps it is something to do with the love between people that provides the mechanism for the self to survive death in the only meaningful way we know.

 

In those moments, in each of those imperfect, invisible versions of Eugene that will spring into life within those who know what made him him, his distinctive Eugene-ness will appear again. And again, and so on, through all of us, and over a very long, slow fade.



August 2017

From 11 Oct 2017, the nation’s favourite dark manipulator of magic and mind control will perform his latest stage show, DERREN BROWN: UNDERGROUND at the Playhouse Theatre, London, for a limited season until the 14th October.

Direct from a sell-out national tour, it features a collection of some of the very best of his previous stage work brought together into a spell-binding experience of showmanship and magical genius.

Derren comments: “It’s not a brand new show, rather an opportunity to see me perform some of my own choice of favourite bits from the past fourteen years of touring. Hopefully, it will be just as rewarding an experience for those who have seen me before as it will be for first-timers”.

Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, Derren Brown and Paul Sandler for Vaudeville Productions Ltd. and David Binder Present DERREN BROWN: UNDERGROUND, Directed by Andrew O’Connor & Andy Nyman Written by Andy Nyman, Andrew O’Connor & Derren Brown. Setting by Will Bowen, Lighting Design by Charlie Morgan Jones, General Manager is John Dalston.

The performance is not suitable for children under 12 years of age.

TICKETS: http://bit.ly/2tizF3B

This Spring, Derren Brown will make his American theatrical debut in Derren Brown: Secret – a world premiere production at Atlantic Theater Company.

 

TICKETS: https://atlantictheater.org/playevents/derren-brown-secret

 

For the first time ever, New York audiences will be able to experience Derren’s unique blend of mind-reading, suggestion and psychological illusion live and on stage in a brand new theatrical experience.

 

Derren Brown: Secret will run from May 4th –  June 4th 2017 (with previews from Friday, April 21) at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater.

________________________________________

PRESS RELEASE



Atlantic Theater Company Announces

The World Premiere of

DERREN BROWN: SECRET

Starring Olivier Award winner Derren Brown

Written by Andy Nyman, Derren Brown and Andrew O’Connor

Directed by Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman

Performances Begin Friday, April 21

Opening Night Tuesday, May 16

Limited Engagement through Sunday, June 4

Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater

“What Mr. Brown does is find or impose patterns within or on the chaotic whirl of life, making an immense and varied group of people feel, if only for a moment, ineffably connected.”

— Ben Brantley, The New York Times

“There’s a depth of intelligence…a relish for the poetical and the philosophical too – that easily stands comparison with the finest drama.”

— Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

________________________________________

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) is proud to announce the world premiere production of Olivier Award winner Derren Brown’s new show Secret, written by Andy Nyman, Derren Brown and Andrew O’Connor, and directed by Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman.

Derren Brown: Secret is a brand new production from the acclaimed British performer and author who will make his American theatrical debut at Atlantic Theater Company. In the UK, Derren Brown’s critically acclaimed shows have played sold out runs in the West End and won two Olivier Awards.

Be part of the startling world of mind-reading, suggestion and psychological illusion at the hands of UK phenomenon, Derren Brown. This spellbinding theatrical experience challenges us – in the most jaw-dropping way – to take a closer look at the stories and beliefs that guide our lives.

Derren Brown: Secret will begin previews Friday, April 21, officially open Tuesday, May 16 and play a limited engagement through Sunday, June 4, 2017, Off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20 Street).

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://atlantictheater.org/playevents/derren-brown-secret

Secret is not suitable for children under 12.

Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater is located at 336 West 20 Street (between 8 and 9 Avenues).

Schedule:

Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.

No Sunday matinee: 4/30

Added performance: Sunday 4/30 at 7pm

Tickets:

Tickets will be available to Season Passport holders beginning Monday, February 13 at 2:00pm, to Super Fan Passport holders beginning Friday, February 24 at noon and to the general public on Friday, March 10 at noon. Super Fan Passports include 2 tickets to the show, a 2-week pre-sale period, unlimited ticket exchanges, no additional fees and 2 Derren Brown-signed show posters.

Regular tickets begin at $65. Super Fan Passports are $185. Order online at atlantictheater.org, by calling OvationTix at 866-811-4111, or in person at the Linda Gross Theater box office (336 West 20 Street between 8 and 9 Avenues).

Passports can be purchased online at www.atlantictheater.org/passport/, by calling OvationTix at 866-811-4111, or in person at the Linda Gross Theater box office (336 West 20 Street between 8 and 9 Avenues) Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00 – 6:00pm.

For information on Atlantic Theater Company Passports,

visit www.atlantictheater.org/passport/ or email [email protected].

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://atlantictheater.org/playevents/derren-brown-secret