Derren Brown tried to control viewers' minds – so how come he can't control the growing sense that he's the most annoying man on TV, asks Fionola Meredith
PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONIST Derren Brown seemed pretty pleased with himself when he appeared to accurately predict the British National Lottery result live on Channel 4, watched by more than four million viewers.
But his explanation for the feat – he claimed to have used a “deep maths” technique that drew on the “wisdom of the crowd” to predict the numbers – left many feeling let down.
Maths professors dismissed his rationale as “complete rubbish”, “a clear wind-up” and “a bluff”. Conspiracy theorists were variously convinced that the stunt was achieved by split screens, false walls or radio-controlled number projectors. Whatever the answer, Brown has succeeded in one unintentional feat: annoying millions of people.
Last Friday’s “event”, attempted to psychically glue viewers’ rear-ends to the sofa, with the resultant effect that YouTube is now packed with clips of people (apparently) struggling fruitlessly to get out of their own armchairs.
In this Friday’s show, How to be a Psychic Spy, Brown will be “testing” the principle of remote viewing — the ability to see and describe an object that is hidden from view. In this case, it’s a covered drawing in the Science Museum in London. “Of course, I don’t believe in anything psychic, so it’ll be interesting to see how we do,” he has chirped.
But what is it about the self-styled “sharp-bearded thought-fiddler” from Croydon that has set people’s teeth on edge? Well, part of the answer is straightforward: no one likes to be taken for a sucker.
Huge numbers of viewers were drawn in by the improbable promise that they would learn “how to win the lottery”, and when they were offered an unconvincing, woolly explanation, they felt patronised, ashamed of their own credulity – and irritated.
Then there’s the matter of Brown’s stage persona. Of course, being an illusionist is all about outsmarting the herd and surrounding yourself with an air of mystery.
In his publicity shots, Brown does this by staring intensely into the camera, eyes narrowed, presumably to give the impression he is looking deep into our souls. He’s undoubtedly talented, but there’s a touch of the know-it-all about him, even by illusionist standards.
Perhaps it’s the way he smirks into his goatee as each hapless volunteer is outwitted. Or maybe it’s that he too evidently revels in his own notoriety.
Yet behind the showmanship, you occasionally get a glimpse of something more vulnerable. It’s there in Brown’s quick, nervous smiles, and his clunky jokes. During the lottery programme he quipped that the bonus ball was only for “women and gays”.
In a rare, possibly disingenuous, moment of self-deprecation, Brown himself said that performing magic is nothing more than “uninteresting puzzles ludicrously presented by sexually anomalous men with poor social skills”.
It would almost make you feel sorry for the man.
