Derren Brown plays Russian Roulette was a little overblown. Unsurprisingly really, considering the act of playing Russian Roulette is a pretty quick one. Instead we got an hour of Mr Brown trying to find the the weakest willed man in the country. If the program has one lasting effect, it is that the nervous kid who looked the dead spit of Iain Lee will now be preyed upon by conmen and anyone else with the barest smidgeon of psycho-linguistic programming under their belt to fleece him of his savings.
As for Derren himself, he panicked and guessed the wrong bullet. Or was that just for effect? Magic, when there is nothing magical about it, is just tiresome.
Having a bit of a phobia about D.B (read my post on “Derren Brown’s disturbing video game stunt”) I never watched the russian roulette stunt.
Having used fire-arms myself, I know that there are several things that can be done to affect the “feel” of a gun, but i don’t know how the trick was done.. or was it done? I didn’t know about him guessing the wrong bullet – was that just a warm-up before the actual stunt? If so, then it was certainly just for effect.
I’ve got to say that even though I’m quite mild-tempered (I don’t like upsetting people or seeing people get hurt), I think I’d probably beat the living-daylights out of D.B if I ever saw him on the street (and he doesn’t live far away). I wish he would give a little more consideration to the affect his mind-control act has on viewers; then maybe I wouldn’t have this ridiculous phobia about him.
he gives a GREAT deal of consideration to the effect his mind-control has on viewers. why do you think otherwise?
I don’t believe that I could be the only person to have been affected this way, and I’m very skeptically-minded, so I can only imagine how more superstitiously-minded people would react. I’m sure he must be aware that when he says he can “control people’s minds” there are going to be a lot of people out there who take him at his word.
Apart from the fact that in many of his shows (and in his book) he quite clearly and deliberately makes the point that it’s all just ‘mind tricks’ that anyone could learn? And even goes to the trouble of showing how it was done in some cases.
when he says he can “control people’s minds”
I’ve never heard him say that! In fact he says the opposite so often that him saying that seems wrong – perhaps there was some ironic context??
To be fair, a lot of people do seem to get entirely the wrong message from DB – if you are passing a book shop, flick through the very back of his book and you will see some of the odder letters he has got about his “magical abilities”.
Personally I don’t know how he could do more to explain that he is a very grounded sceptic beyond a constant distracting ticker at the foot of the screen: “Derren does not believe in the supernatural… Derren does not actually possess magic powers… Derren is pointing out how gullible people can be…” ect
Hi Emma.
“Mind tricks” when they have the effect of making someone do something or reveal something against their will, is what I mean by “mind control”. It’s not untrue to say that anyone could learn to do it, but it probably takes a lot of skill that most people will never have – I could theoretically learn to fly the Space Shuttle, but it’s not very likely.
I don’t know about a ticker at the foot of the screen.. maybe that was in later episodes. When I saw the first show, he made a very unambiguous claim to be able to mess with people’s minds.