Derren Brown has admitted he made an easy Birmingham-related mistake that many Brummies could also make while visiting the city centre. The illusionist, whose national tour of Only Human arrives in Birmingham this June, once turned up at Birmingham Hippodrome instead of the Alexandra Theatre.
The 55-year-old will be appearing at Birmingham Hippodrome for the first time in his career from June 2 to 13. Speaking ahead of the show, Brown said: "I've played Birmingham once every two years for the last twenty years of doing these shows. But I haven't played the Hippodrome before. I turned up at the Hippodrome once, I think the very first time I came (to the city). I thought I was playing at the Hippodrome, so I turned up, went in through the stage door and was trying to sign in, and then realised I was at entirely the wrong theatre because I was at the Alex. And so, over the years, we've always played the Alex. This will be my first time turning up at the Hippodrome and that being the right place."
What to Expect from Only Human
Asked about what fans can expect from his latest show, Brown said: "It’s sort of centered around the idea of how the decisions we make in the present affect our future and the way that we see the future. Magicians have tried to predict the future or pretended to predict the future forever. And I think it’s quite a resonant idea. So, I suppose it’s really at its heart about that, which is why there's a slightly futuristic-looking poster, especially for me."
Brown first appeared on TV with Mind Control in 2000 and his popularity has grown since then. Over the years he's developed his own style, combining sleight-of-hand magic with subliminal messaging along with his onstage persona. Despite huge interest in his stage tricks, Brown says he tries to make his shows about the audience. "I'm not that interesting, but a room of people watching the show are interesting and are going to find themselves always more interesting than me," he said.
Psychological Awareness in Modern Times
Speaking as someone who's become famous for their tricks and psychological experiments, Brown believes people in the modern age are "very psychologically aware nowadays." He added: "We talk about trauma and triggering and things that were once clinical language, now we talk about it like it's stuff of every day. But on the other hand, you know, we're just as prone to falling for charlatans and psychics and all that nonsense as much as ever. In fact, I think sometimes the more sophisticated we become, the more we can fool ourselves for a lot of those things. Scientists are surprisingly easy to fool with magic because of the tendency to overthink. You need a magician to spot a charlatan normally, not a scientist, because magicians are very good at thinking differently."
Throughout his career, Brown has had dozens of different stage shows and TV series that have captivated audiences. In that time, he's performed countless tricks and psychological experiments on people. Asked if there are things that people still do which surprises him, Derren said: "Well, every time I do a show, I’m out there doing it a few hundred times and seeing how people respond to the same thing every night. When they do psychological experiments, they normally try and do them with a thousand people as a good number to get a snapshot of what the population at large will do. My audiences are normally a bit over a thousand every night, so I get to see that. So there's always something."
Memorable Moments from Past Shows
He said his stage show Miracle, which ran between 2015 and 2016, provided the "best example" of this situation where he saw how "lifelong suffering may have been continued through a purely psychological process that can be lifted in a matter of minutes just by getting everyone into a certain state of mind." He continued: "And then that can stay with people; it wasn't just for the ten minutes they're on stage. So that, historically, when I think back, that's what's jumped out at me as the most surprising."
Another thing that's stayed with Brown is how guests appear as he hypnotises them. "The way that people look just before I hypnotize them, before they collapse to the floor, there's something very human and vulnerable and often quite a confused look I get," said Brown. "And that's something that's really stayed with me over the years because we kind of think of ourselves as very rational creatures at our core."
Final Thoughts on Only Human
Asked if there's anything he'd like to add regarding his upcoming Only Human show, Brown added: "I really try and keep any surprises under wraps. But all I would say is I throw out frisbees to choose people. I'm someone that would hate to be dragged up on stage, so it's very easy to simply pass a frisbee along if you don't want to get involved, which is why I do it like that. So people shouldn't be scared of coming; no one's forced to take part in anything."
