I’ve just watched Derren Browns TV program tonight and I’m very impressed. He’s a showman all right …

… and he uses theatricals to entertain and amaze but at the heart of what he does is something interesting and special.

I’ve tried to pick apart his ‘tricks’, and one of his favourite themes is to guess what someone else has guessed … the ‘pick a card’ kind of trick. and its kind of obvious what he does if you look … I’m kind of surprised they dont notice consciously but do notice subconciously. Its about cues, suggestions and associations.

First, he controls the situation, quite severely in fact. He is in full passive/aggressive control and makes the relationship between him an subject clearly felt. Then he cues, in some way, when the ’subject’ is bereft of any clar logical choice and is therefore in an open-to-suggestion state.

Lets face it the ‘pick an object / make a choice’ is hard for us to do when faced with no criteria for success … in tonights case the guy from East Enders/Spandau Ballet has to choose one item in a room with 150 objects. What do you choose? You need help … rationality cant help you now … and you want to co-operate with the guy … you dont want him to fail … wahe he failed before he was very upset … and the cameras … so you look in your memory for some hint suggestion, association or cue. Anything will be jumped on, subconciously, and the choice will be made according to the cue. Cue provided, choice determined, no real choice, outcome determined.

Without logic and rationality to help any suggestion will do. Any suggestion. Ask a youth in the street to hold fingers behind his back, wave three fingers about in front of him and say how many fingers are you holding up behind your back … and it will be three.

I’m very impressed by his control and his use of cues. Its like designing experiences, or it should be. Its staging, its theatre, its magic.

Theres some clips at Channel 4 site and heres a clip of him explaining a card trick …

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