| Poranic's profilePicPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
May 28 Derren Brown: Mind readerAmong the modern mentalists, Derren Brown is the crème de la crème. Derren Brown presents himself as a man who can read and control people's mind. He became very famous in UK and in the world in recent years from his sensational mental effects. For those of you who don't know him, let's take a look at a couple of clips from his TV series.
In the Tube Experiment, he made passengers forget which tube station they're getting off at.
Add to My Profile | More Videos This clip is from his recent TV show. He controled people's mind to accept blank papers as money.
How To Pay For Anything With Blank Paper (Derren Brown - NLP) - For more of the funniest videos, click here and many more like these.
I believe that his stunts are actually magic tricks in which no psychological suggestion, hypnosis, or mind control technique whatsoever is really used. However, he has so great showmanship that audience are convinced that he possesses such psychological abilities. Whatever he is, I consider him as an entertainer, so, despite having the scepticism, I wanted to watch his show and I did at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham.
The evening started with an introduction to a small locked box hanging above the stage in full view, followed by an amusing video testing some funny psychological experiments with the audience. Derren Brown then entered the stage and greeted his audience.
The main show consisted of two halves. The first half was a modern mentalism show which involved lots of audience participation. To avoid possibility of using stooges, DB choosed the participants by throwing out frisbees to the audience; those who manage to catch a frisbee would join him on stage. In the first routine, six audience members were choosen. Each of them wrote a name of any object on a paper and kept it secret in their pocket. DB played a "20 Questions" game but he asked only 3-4 questions or so and told them exactly what they had written down. Next, a girl was selected and seemingly transmited her thought to the audience. It's funny because the whole audience knew how the trick was done except the girl on the stage. DB then taught her some techniques. Unbelievably, she correctly guessed the three different cards which were choosen by another audience members. Then, another person was selected to go on the stage. He was asked to call his friend by his mobile phone. DB predicted a three digit number and tried to get the person on the phone to guess this number. He failed two times consecutively, so DB gave up but offered a £10 banknote to the guy on the stage. At the end, DB told him to open the banknote to find that the numbers said from the phone actually matched the six digit serial number of the banknote in correct order. Before ending the first half, a covered box containing the money of either £500 or £5000 was presented. An audience member guessed the amount of money in the box. If the answer was correct, he would win that money. That night, £5000 was guessed. However, when the box was uncovered, it contained £500. I think no one could win this game. lol
 During the interval, audience members were asked to write a question about anything on the paper, seal it in the provided envelope and put their initials and seat row letter on the front. They then placed their envelope into a glass bowl on the stage. The envelopes were later used for an experiment in the second half. I didn't really want to try, so I didn't take part in the experiment.
While the first half was full of playfulness the second half was a bit more serious. It seemed like a spiritual show in the Victorian period. DB demonstrated a ritual to call spirits of dead people to move a table and make it float. He then proceeded to act as the "oracle". The envelopes collected during the interval came into play. He randomly picked up one envelope at a time and called random people whose initials appeared on the envelope to stand up. He then told them the answer of the question that was written inside without seeing it. Later he even blinded himself with a bandages around his head and still was able to continue with the act. Not only did he answer their questions but also revealed many private information about themselves which he couldn't be possibly have known; their full name, their zodiac sign, their pet's name, their occupation, their plan to propose someone etc. This was the most astonishing part of the show. To my magic knowledge, there must be some tricks involved but I remained in an ignorant and was totally dumbfounded
 . The act finished when he fainted as if the spirit left him. It's a very impressive act. It's that amazing. You have to see to believe !  At the end of the show, DB did a very nice add-the-numbers trick. Several numbers were written by several audience members, all numbers were added up and the total was coincidently equal the date of the show (ddmmyy). For the finale, the hanging box above the stage was openned. Inside the box was a roll of long paper. The paper was unrolled by a girl from the audience to reveal the predictions of many things that actually just happened in the show ! An excellent finish.
My friend and I enjoyed the evening so much. The show was very entertaining as well as baffling. Derren Brown presented the best mentalism act I have ever seen. The standing ovation that he received was definitely deserved. May 23 Will's tricksMy friend, Will, performed coin and card tricks during a weekly meeting of the magic society. He is the youngest British champion of close-up magic and was one of UK representatives who took part in FISM World championship of magic 2006 in Stockholm.
Add to My Profile | More Videos [http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2031168187] Thanks, Will May 08 Meet Shaun MurphyI went to Crucible theatre last Saturday to watch the world snooker championship semi-final, Shaun Murphy vs Mark Selby, and luckily met Shaun Murphy that morning when he was arriving the venue.
|
|
|
