Derren Brown: The Events | |
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Title card
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Created by |
Derren Brown Andy Nyman Iain Sharkey |
Directed by | Simon Dinsell |
Presented by | Derren Brown |
Composer(s) | Ken Bolam and Nick Foster |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 4 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) |
Derren Brown Anthony Owen Andrew O'Connor |
Producer(s) | Hannah Dodson |
Running time | 60 minutes (incl. adverts) |
Production company(s) | Objective Productions |
Release | |
Original network | Channel 4 |
Original release | 9 September – 2 October 2009 |
Chronology | |
Preceded by | Trick or Treat |
Followed by | Derren Brown: The 3D Magic Spectacular |
External links | |
Website | www |
Derren Brown: The Events was a Channel 4 television series featuring the illusionist Derren Brown. Filmed in front of a live studio audience, this series is made up of four one-hour specials, during which Brown attempted what he had described as "some of the most incredible feats to date". The series consisted of a mixture of pre-recorded location pieces connected by theatre-based segments, with each of the four programmes building up to a major stunt performance.
The first trailer broadcast included Brown speaking in reverse but walking forwards with events around him happening forwards. Seemingly cryptic messages were also hidden in the advert such as links to a "Manchester United" website. The advert was later played forwards (although now with Brown moving in reverse), and revealed the premise of the shows. Brown explains that in his new series he will be revealing the "inner workings" of his tricks and "showing you how to get away with it".
The first show, a live event broadcast on Wednesday 9 September 2009, appeared to show Derren Brown predicting that night's lottery draw. This was conducted by a set of white balls lined up, facing a wall, next to a television displaying a live feed from BBC One as they aired the live draw. After the draw, Brown wrote the results on a piece of card prior to turning the white balls around, facing the camera, to reveal that both the numbers on the balls and the numbers on the card were the same. The winning numbers were: 2, 11, 23, 28, 35 and 39. The bonus was number 15, however, his predictions did not include the bonus ball.
On Friday 11 September at 21:00, a second show aired, which stated three possibilities for winning the lottery. The first, faking a winning ticket, was quickly dismissed, and the majority of the programme described Brown's use of automatic writing and crowd psychology to appear to predict the numbers ahead of time. Through a series of experiments and attempts at explaining complex psychology, while avoiding the underlying maths, Brown suggested that he may have predicted numbers using a phenomenon known as the "Wisdom of Crowds". He revealed 24 volunteers who, after a number of previous sessions, were shown to apparently predict the correct numbers by perusing a board filled with previous lottery numbers and guessing that week's through automatic writing. The show concluded with a brief description of how the lottery results could have been rigged, with Brown firmly stating that this would have been illegal and that he would always claim the stunt was simply a trick.