Derren Brown: The Gathering (2005 TV Special) User Reviews

Derren Brown: The Gathering

[jboothmillard · 8/10 · 13 September 2009]

This was the first time that magician, illusionist and mentalist Derren Brown performed on stage live, with filming commencing, and an audience of both public and celebrities. Filmed in London in a secret location (revealed at the end), he basically does what he does on TV, get a volunteer from the audience and makes them think of something, someone, somewhere, etc, and he obviously tries to deduct and locate what, who, where, etc, it is. He is so clever with his memory and word play that he manages to amaze and captivate you all the way through. Celebrities in the audience, and one or two taking part, included: Sarah Alexander, Simon Pegg, Al Murray, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Jonathan Ross, Peter Serafinowicz and The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith. Very good!

Shepherd's Bush Green.

[cardinalbunal · 10/10 · 3 June 2007]

You can't afford to watch just snippets of this in Youtube. Unlike most of his mind stunts in "Trick of the Mind", the show is designed to run as a cohesive whole. Derren Brown truly understands and incorporates the element of narrative in each of his routines. What will at first seem like a rather unimpressive "betcha" that nonetheless gets an applause anyway escalates into a psychological feat that eventually deserves that applause. E.g. the opening number the shape and country prediction; and the memory feat. And what I mean by narrative cohesion is the way almost everything is interconnected as they should be.

Just watch all of this, everything including the ending, you'll also know why they were "blindly" taken to their location as this top notch show of mentalism has a surprise twist.

The only thing is, one can wonder where or if he genuinely uses NLP and suggestion as opposed to "straight mentalism". And was that loud bang used as an anchor? Who cares. Just get Derren Brown: The Gathering! A+