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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest names, and now part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:13] Alan Seales: This episode is with Derren Brown, who is on Broadway right now with his new show, Secret. For those of you who don't know him, he's this UK phenomenon, he's a mentalist, he's a hypnotist, he's a mind reader, he's an illusionist, he's an author. This guy is incredible and I don't even know where to start, I don't know where to end with this introduction because I just can't give away any of the secrets. I went to his show, I actually got called up on stage, I don't know, I was part of one of these tricks and I still don't know how he did it. It's just incredible. You've got to go see the show. That's really all I can say, I don't know, I don't know where else to go with this. Other than that, it was really impressive to me that he's actually, he's very introverted, very humble and it's the opposite of this big stage presence, charismatic guy that he plays during the show.

So it was nice to have an intimate conversation as the tagline of this podcast claims. So everybody, before we get into the episode, visit me online at thetheatrepodcast.com or broadwaypodcastnetwork.com slash ttp, show your support at ttp.fm slash Patreon. And now everybody, please enjoy this episode with Derren Brown.

[1:36] Alan Seales: So this introduction, I actually have to admit, I plagiarized from your website, but from stage to screen, two-time Olivier Award winning Derren Brown has mesmerized millions worldwide with his unique brand of mind reading, persuasion and psychological illusion. Now for the first time ever, this UK phenomenon and Netflix star brings his talents to Broadway for the first time in his newest show, Secret. Derren Brown, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:00] Derren Brown: That was a very nice introduction, thank you.

[2:02] Derren Brown: Which I think I wrote myself at some point.

[2:06] Alan Seales: Well, God, I don't know where to start. I saw your show, blew me away, there's a friend of mine who's, he's actually, he's British and I was like, have you heard of this guy Derren Brown? He was like, oh my God, yeah, like I love it, just this great thing, like you are a UK phenomenon and now you're bringing this great phenomenon, this great show to the US and we'll get into the show, but as we normally do on the podcast, I actually want to back up and talk about your childhood. Where did you grow up? Where are you from?

[2:35] Derren Brown: So I'm from south of London in a fairly, I don't know what the equivalent would be, but a place called Purley, which is part of Croydon, which is a very sort of middle class, fairly sort of drab, I think it's probably okay to say, kind of place. And then I, too close to London to have anything going on, at least when I was there, I'm 48 now, so it's a while ago. And then I ended up studying in Bristol, which is a beautiful, leafy city in the west of England and I stayed there for a long time. But yeah, originally just sort of suburbia.

[3:13] Alan Seales: So when did the love for, like, is it magic, is it illusions, like what do you call it?

[3:19] Derren Brown: Well, I don't know, I've managed to avoid any kind of labels in England, which is great. I mean, that's a really nice situation to be in back home, but here it's slightly fiddlier because I do need to, at some point, pin down and say what I do. I studied law and German at Bristol University and I realized early on I didn't want to be a lawyer or a German. So I saw a hypnotist perform in my first year and it was kind of extraordinary. And it wasn't one of those shows of people being embarrassed, it was sort of just fascinating. So I left that night determined to learn how to do that. So I did. So I started off as a hypnotist and I was doing shows and that kind of thing. And then it's a difficult job to really make a living out of unless you're prepared to do the tackiest sort of show that often gets done. I didn't want to do that. So I started doing magic tricks, close-up magic, because this guy that I'd seen, the hypnotist also, did a few tricks informally afterwards.

[4:19] Derren Brown: Sleight of hand, misdirection.

[4:20] Derren Brown: Exactly, yeah. So he was kind of my only sort of really role model at that time. So I did that and then I ended up earning a living as a magician. But the psychological stuff and the suggestion-based stuff has always interested me more, because that's really where I started. So I was veering it all the time into this world of sort of psychological effects and psychological illusions, mind reading rather than finding your playing card. And I wrote a couple of books for magicians that made me well-known in that world. And then in 2000 or 99, yeah, probably 99, 98, 99, a TV company were looking for someone to be a mind reader on British TV, because it hadn't been done for a long time. And I did.

And then they signed me up eventually. They spent a couple of years looking for somebody like me, liked me, and then signed me up. And I had my first TV show in the UK in 2000. And it also then brought with it a wave of sort of mentalism as a bit of a thing. There were mentalists around before me, certainly. There was sort of Kreskin and people like that here. And but it certainly, for a good chunk of time before I got going in the UK, it wasn't really particularly anything that was popular. I think now there's a lot more magicians as they get into magic. Now there's sort of mind reading things a lot more popular, which is probably largely my fault. But yeah, so that's how it all started.

[5:44] Alan Seales: So it was your early 20s then?

[5:47] Derren Brown: I thought you were doing it from when like sleight of hand stuff when you were a little kid.

[5:50] Derren Brown: Yeah, no, not really. I had a magic set when I was young, as a lot of kids do.

[5:55] Derren Brown: Cut the rope, do the rings.

[5:56] Derren Brown: Yeah, exactly. Literally all that. And I sort of then forgot about it. No, it was when I was later at university. I think I was that thing of magic's the quickest, most fraudulent route to impressing people. So if you need that in your life because you're underconfident or you don't feel impressive, it's a great way of making that happen, of impressing people. And it's easy because you're cheating. So people go, oh, you're amazing. You should be on television. And it might be something you've just pulled out of a Christmas cracker. How do you know whether it's something that's taken years of skill or something that's just a trick deck of cards or whatever? So it's a very easy way of getting that sort of reaction. For me, that was very important. But certainly, yeah, more so around sort of university age and the desire to perform. I was probably quite sort of insufferable, I think, at that time.

[6:47] Alan Seales: Yeah, well, early 20s. But we all look back and find ourselves excruciating, don't we?

[6:50] Derren Brown: Oh, yeah.

[6:51] Derren Brown: That's probably growing up, isn't it? Early 20s, yeah. I thought I could rule the world. Now in my late 30s, I still think I can, but who knows?

[7:01] Alan Seales: The interesting thing for me, I was reading up about neurolinguistic programming, NLP. And along those lines, I suspect that you're probably controlling this entire interview right now, dropping hints somehow for me. What is NLP, for those who don't know?

[7:18] Derren Brown: NLP, neurolinguistic programming, is a sort of, I'd say, academically discredited, but sort of interesting world. I get associated with a lot. And I've had some peripheral involvement with it. I'm always very careful not to sort of claim that I'm using it, because then people get upset because they say, oh, no, he's not. I never really claim I do anything in particular. But it's sort of a little bit like hypnosis without the hypnosis. It was started by these guys, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, I think, or Grinder? I don't know if you can still say Grinder nowadays. In the, I don't know, maybe 70s. And yeah, it's a sort of language of persuasion. And it's the sort of stuff you might associate with salesmen and therapists.

And so it borrows from lots of different areas. So I think the areas that it borrows from I find quite interesting. There's a lot of persuasion in what I do and a lot of... My toolkit, if you like, is language and the ongoing experience of the audience. And I'm using the techniques of the magician as well as the hypnotist and everything. But rather than a magician with decks of cards or clever boxes and so on, it's people's experience in the audience that I'm working with. There's very little in the way of props and so on. So that whole world of how language affects us and how we form our narratives, that's really what interests me. The show is about the stories that we live by, the way that we mistake stories for reality.

And it only really hit me after 18 years of touring in the UK that magic, which always struck me as quite a childish thing about impressing people, actually was quite a good analogy for how we edit and delete our ongoing experience of the world and turn it into a story. Because a magician... I'm waffling, I realize, but actually this is sort of what the show's about. A magician sells you a story and you realize when you join up the dots and reach this impossible moment at the end of it that you've just edited and deleted a whole lot of stuff and turned it into this amazing story. But we do this every day with life, don't we? We have this...

[9:43] Derren Brown: Our brain fills in the gaps.

[9:45] Derren Brown: Our brain fills in the gaps. But the same thing that's happening with the magic trick is sort of happening in life. Sometimes we're also being manipulated to do it, but if not, we just do it anyway. We find the things that confirm what we already believe and the things that fit in neatly. We ignore the things we don't believe or we don't find important and we join up the dots and form this story. And occasionally it's good to be reminded that it is just a story because then it can free us up in important ways.

[10:09] Alan Seales: The reading people in general, I mean, you said... I expect you to say like, oh yeah, NLP, that's what I studied, that's how it is. But you claim to not have any psychic powers.

[10:21] Derren Brown: I claim to not have a lot of things. I just don't like to claim anything in particular.

[10:29] Alan Seales: Right.

[10:29] Derren Brown: But the mind... I mean, it's just mind reading, but it's observation. And I hope we can talk about this.

[10:38] Derren Brown: It's okay. There's a section in the show where...

[10:41] Alan Seales: Ooh, ooh, ooh, no spoilers, no spoilers, no spoilers.

[10:45] Derren Brown: Okay, I won't even go to sections.

[10:47] Alan Seales: So reading people and learning their stories.

[10:51] Derren Brown: Yeah.

[10:51] Derren Brown: And you...

[10:55] Derren Brown: Oh God, I want to die.

[10:57] Derren Brown: Yeah, it's a show of mind reading. It's a show of mind reading.

[10:59] Derren Brown: And influence and audience participation. Some of the stuff that you read while I was there blew me away.

[11:06] Alan Seales: Sure.

[11:07] Alan Seales: Yeah, just blew me away.

[11:10] Derren Brown: And I'm trying to think of what I can and can't say.

[11:15] Derren Brown: I can't see much of anything.

[11:16] Alan Seales: Goodness.

[11:16] Derren Brown: All right, everybody go see the show.

[11:18] Alan Seales: End of interview, fine.

[11:20] Derren Brown: It is difficult. It's difficult to talk about. I mean, I think I've done these shows for a while. And early on, I swore the audiences to secrecy. And it's a really helpful thing. Because not only does it... Well, it just preserves a certain type of experience when you come and sit. I think if you come in expecting certain things to happen, it just sort of changes it. So yeah, it is really difficult to talk about.

[11:42] Derren Brown: But I know what you're getting at. There are bits in the show where I am just doing this kind of mind reading with the audience. And there are sort of warnings I make about as to how involved people want to be. Because I don't always have full control over what gets revealed about people. But if your question is at heart, how is it done? Which is a very sensible question.

[12:05] Derren Brown: Yes. It's a sort of variety of techniques. And I'm basically using...

[12:18] Derren Brown: I've got one foot in that world of fake science.

[12:20] Derren Brown: Thank you for having me on the show, Alan. It's a pleasure to be here.

[12:50] Derren Brown: I’ve always been fascinated by the mind and how it works. My journey into mentalism began when I was quite young, and I realized that there was so much more to perception than what meets the eye.

[13:10] Derren Brown: The way people think, the way they react, and the way they can be influenced is just incredible. I’ve spent years honing my craft to explore these aspects and share them with audiences.

[13:30] Derren Brown: In my performances, I aim to create a sense of wonder and intrigue, while also encouraging people to think critically about what they see and experience.

[13:50] Derren Brown: I often say that my work is about understanding the psychology behind belief and perception. It’s not about supernatural powers; it’s about the art of suggestion and the power of the mind.

[14:10] Derren Brown: I’ve had the opportunity to perform in various formats, from stage shows to television specials, and each medium offers its own unique challenges and rewards.

[14:30] Derren Brown: My latest show, "Secret," is particularly special to me because it combines elements of storytelling, psychological illusion, and audience participation in a way that feels fresh and engaging.

[14:50] Derren Brown: I believe that theatre has a unique ability to connect people and create shared experiences, and I’m excited to bring my work to Broadway for the first time.

[15:10] Derren Brown: The energy of a live audience is something that can’t be replicated, and I thrive on that interaction. It’s a dynamic that fuels my performances.

[15:30] Derren Brown: I also enjoy breaking down the barriers between performer and audience, inviting them into the experience and making them a part of the magic.

[16:00] Derren Brown: Throughout my career, I’ve always tried to challenge the misconceptions surrounding mentalism and magic. I want to demystify the process and show people that it’s all about skill and psychology.

[16:30] Derren Brown: I think it’s important for audiences to leave my shows not just entertained, but also with a sense of curiosity and a desire to explore their own minds.

[16:50] Derren Brown: The feedback I receive from audiences is incredibly rewarding. It’s gratifying to know that my work resonates with people on a deeper level.

[17:20] Derren Brown: I often hear stories from audience members about how my performances have inspired them to think differently or to explore their own potential.

[17:48] Derren Brown: That connection is what drives me to continue creating and performing. It’s about more than just the tricks; it’s about the impact we can have on each other.

[18:18] Derren Brown: I’ve also written several books, both for magicians and for the general public, which delve into the principles behind my work and the psychology of persuasion.

[18:38] Derren Brown: Writing has been a wonderful outlet for me, allowing me to share my thoughts and insights in a different format.

[19:08] Derren Brown: I think it’s essential to keep evolving as an artist, and I’m always looking for new ways to challenge myself and my audience.

[19:28] Derren Brown: Whether it’s through live performances, television, or writing, I strive to push the boundaries of what’s possible and to keep the audience guessing.

[19:58] Derren Brown: I’m excited for what lies ahead and can’t wait to see how my work continues to evolve in the future.

[20:28] Derren Brown: Thank you for this opportunity to share my journey and my passion for mentalism with your listeners.

[20:48] Derren Brown: I hope to inspire others to explore their own creativity and to embrace the power of the mind.

[21:18] Derren Brown: It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Alan, and I look forward to what’s next.

[21:48] Derren Brown: Let’s keep the conversation going and see where it takes us!

[22:18] Derren Brown: Thank you again for having me on the show. It’s been an enlightening experience.

[22:48] Derren Brown: I appreciate the platform to discuss my work and the art of mentalism.

[23:18] Derren Brown: I hope your audience finds it as fascinating as I do.

[23:48] Derren Brown: Until next time, keep exploring the wonders of the mind!

[24:18] Derren Brown: Thank you!

[24:41] Derren Brown: It's a really, really lovely experience. I wish we could do just a little bit of this back home, whatever it is. Also, just the sheer amount of money involved here is a different world, and I suppose that makes a difference, and it generates a more positive attitude, I think, than we have at home. It's just very different, and I know I'm going to miss it. I will miss it when I go back. So I want to get back to the show and the mentalism a little bit, because sometimes I'll walk into a party, I'll walk into a room, I'll walk into a place, and then there's energy you can feel from people. There's something that are like, oh, they're hiding something, or they need a lot of attention. I can tell quickly with certain people, at least I assume certain things, and maybe it's an assumption because I'm just untrained.

But has there been anything in your life, in your experience, where you've just been really just blown away by something that you've discovered, or something that you've found out about someone that you hoped wasn't true? No, it was. It's interesting doing this show because you or I, what I find interesting is how, I stop saying me, how you, how we can see very quickly in microcosm how somebody can, I throw Frisbees out to choose people, how somebody catches a Frisbee and stands up. I know how they're going to be on stage from that. And then how they are on stage, how they're going to be in life. So I've learned throughout the show, I have to really go with my gut instinct in terms of whether I use people or not, because I have to choose people at random, but at the same time sometimes have to reject people.

And it's not about discovering people's secrets or anything like that. There's a lot of that in the show, but just for how you can get a person in one small moment. And of course, being in a room of people, a whole audience, let alone being on stage in front of them, this is just standing up in the audience, is like an intensification of what it is in real life, how we deal with people that we meet. So to me, just that situation is very telling in terms of what people do with that strangeness and anxiety of just suddenly being in front of loads of people. The thing I actually really learned from doing the show is what to do with nerves. Because I was noticing when people come up on stage, if they're just nervous, the room loves them, right?

Because you're all feeling, oh, that could be me up there. You have this sort of vicarious warmth. And if I at all made a joke that was ill-judged at their expense, I could feel the audience turn against me. Whereas if a lot of people come up and they turn the nerves into something else, like they're going to be a joker or they're going to try and spoil the trick, or they're going to be strangely odd and detached and sort of unimpressed by everything. All the stuff we do in real life all the time when we're nervous. And the room hates them. You can feel everybody turning against them. And now they're suddenly on my side. So it doesn't bother me at all if people are like that because I know I've got the room on my side, which is an odd thing.

But after seeing this year after year, I just thought, God, what a great lesson for just how to be in life. It's something I really learned from the show that if you're nervous, it's fine. Let that sit because people warm to it. It feels very vulnerable. It makes you feel very alone and very disconnected. But actually what's happening is everybody's leaning into you. And just don't turn it into all the other stuff we do because it just turns everybody off. So it doesn't quite answer your question. But things like that in terms of things that I've got from people at that level. In terms of the mind reading or discovering, occasionally, things have come out in the show which I've sort of gone with a gut feeling on something like yesterday declaring someone was pregnant.

And she'd only just found out. She hadn't announced it to anybody. And I'm sort of going, oh, I'm sorry. Is it all right for me to say that? She's like, oh, yeah. I've told you already. So occasionally stuff like that. But then I've also said, look, stuff is going to come out during this. And if you don't want to be part of it, please don't come back to the second half. So that sort of thing happens sometimes. But generally what I'm doing is creating an illusion. I'm creating an effect, as we call it, a kind of a story, again, that you're telling yourself. So it's not like I'm really walking around in real life going, oh, that person's having an affair. It's not quite like that. You just give the impression that's what you can do.

That's interesting. That's really interesting. I just want to bring up the show. I can't. OK. So OK. Speaking of people who catch frisbees and don't, I'm sitting here with Dory, who's running audio for me, who actually caught the frisbee, handed it to me, and I came up on stage. Yes. No one has to get involved if they don't want to. So I came up on stage and you were like, yeah, this guy's got a podcast, right? You can tell immediately. Oh, clearly, clearly, yes. Clearly a brilliant podcast. And now you've got me on it, strangely. Right. Dory, you had questions I know you wanted to ask. I have so many questions. But I'm, like Alan, I can't ask most of them. But I do. I'm curious because you are so trained in psychology and law and mentalism and all of that.

But you are command of the stage. Your ability to communicate as an actor on top of everything is just so spectacular. And the room is, from the first second, is just completely transfixed. And so I'm wondering, did you have any training as an actor? Did you have any public speaking? Or how did you marry those two worlds? Because you own it.

[30:04] Derren Brown: Oh, lovely thing to say. Thank you. No, I didn't. But I've done the shows for 20 years, and I think they've varied. When I look back on the earlier shows, I think I was getting by just on a sort of just energy, just kind of like hitting the audience with the show. As I've grown up and got a bit older, and I'm just less like that in life, I think I've probably hit different notes throughout the show, which I think gives it a different feel and maybe helps with that. Because those are the things that keep audiences engaged, the sort of shifting notes, as you would as an actor. And it is a sort of acting, because I'm taking something that's large in terms of the stuff that I'm saying. It's kind of a script, and I'm saying the same stuff from night to night, and you have to make that feel fresh and like you're making it up on the spot.

So I do think of it in those terms. But I don't know how I'd be if I was actually in a play. I'd love to do a play. I'd love the idea of sharing that experience with other people and not having the whole burden of it on yourself. But it's a very safe sort of acting, because then you're also just at the moment, I'm just playing myself. I'm just playing this charismatic version of myself, which is lovely. So yeah, I think it's just come from doing and also working with a director of Forever as well, Andrew O'Connor and Andy Nyman, who both also write the show with me. So the three of us have done these things from day one. I love the sort of those strange technical sides of it. You know the audience is losing interest because they cough.

At the moment, with an older audience and this time of year, there's a lot of coughing, and hopefully that's not all on me. But when you start to hear coughs where you don't normally hear coughs, you're losing the audience. So your instinct is to start leaning in and talking a bit louder and upping your energy, and of course you mustn't. You have to do the opposite. You have to pull back and you have to go very quiet, because then people need to lean in more. So suddenly they're on the edge of their seat again, which is where you want them. So all that kind of stuff and all the voice projection, all those things that are very kind of actuary techniques, I love all of that. It's all the hidden stuff.

I really enjoy that sort of hidden technical side of it. It's almost like another magic trick in a way. I do enjoy that. And it's nice occasionally for that to get noticed, just that sort of aspect of it, because people don't very often ask me about it. So that is nice. But yeah, that's the answer. I think it's just from doing it a lot, and it's a very easy mode for me to slip into. But I don't know how I'd be if I was actually in a play having to properly act. I don't know.

[33:28] Derren Brown: You mentioned you're really an introvert. To step on stage for that first time without that training, understanding where that came from in you is really fascinating. I started performing quite early at university, and at the time I was a real attention seeker. So I probably wasn't introverted as such then, because I hadn't quite settled into anything comfortable. I was just desperate for attention. So performing came easy. And when I started my first shows, I used to sit on stage with a semicircle of empty chairs, because I'd have people up. These were hypnosis shows, so people to come up and take part as the audience were coming in. And I did that because it avoided waiting in the wings to walk out on stage, because that's where the nerves are when you can't do anything.

You're just waiting to step out. So I thought, I don't want to be experiencing that, so I'll just sit on stage. Also, it's quite imposing. And then as I grew up and the need to perform in real life subsided and just became the thing I do as a job, and it was taking care of all of the need for attention, I'd already found that mode very comfortable. But I think it's quite a common thing. I think most performers probably are a little introverted, or maybe, I mean, I'm sure you've interviewed a lot of them, or maybe the opposite. But I think even if they're, you can get very good at having an extrovert exterior, but in terms of where you, it's all about where you recharge, isn't it? I think if you recharge essentially on your own, which I know I do, and even a lot of people, a lot of actors I'm sure seem very extroverted, I think probably still just want quiet to recharge, as opposed to an extrovert that kind of recharges by being in company.

That's really all it is. And your threshold for kind of having had enough. The other night I went out to have a drink with some people, then we went on to another place for another drink, and it occurred to me at the age of 48, it was the first time I'd done that in my life. The first time I'd gone on somewhere else. It was Broadway, baby.

[35:30] Alan Seales: That's the New York mentality there.

[35:32] Derren Brown: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But I just have a fairly low threshold for sort of just feeling, you know, just kind of done. And I think, again, that's sort of common amongst my people.

[35:45] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[35:46] Derren Brown: Introverts, not mentalists.

[35:47] Alan Seales: You said two things, actually. One was that your character on stage, it is a character, it's a more charismatic version of yourself. And then you said something just a second ago that was that once your desire to perform in real life subsided, you went on. So introverted, but you find comfort on stage in being this big guy, this big projection of yourself. You obviously don't use that to recharge, because you said you need to be quiet and to be by yourself to recharge. But I'm trying to get at the psychological aspects of this.

[36:23] Derren Brown: The psychology of it. It's a very lovely, adrenaline-filled experience. I get to do a show that I know is a good show. I hope that doesn't sound sort of conceited to say, but it's very different, I guess, if you're an actor going out and doing a play that you just know isn't very good. It must be a very demoralizing experience. So it's a very nice experience to go out and do a show that you feel you sort of own and feels like a good show. So that's nice. It's also a show that's really good fun to do. Hopefully it's fun to watch and come out of and all the rest of it. But I always leave on a high. And if I've had a bad day or just have...

[37:02] Derren Brown: I've just fallen into a bit of a rut or whatever during the day just because I've had nothing to do or I'm writing at the moment so if that maybe it's had a bad day with that or whatever. This doing this show just completely sort of cleans you out. It's like a, it's just an amazing fun thing to do and I, but it's not like a real life. It's not the equivalent of going out to a party or something. I wouldn't enjoy that. It is this sort of oddly controlled thing, but also it's the sort of experience where I'm so on my feet. It's not a show that you're just recreating every night, not repeating every night rather. You have to recreate it but not repeat it as any actor I'm sure would say the same thing.

So, but given that my fellow cast members are people in the audience that could do or say anything, it's a very kind of, you know, on your toes sort of thing which puts you into that flow state that has been spoken about. There's a guy called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who's a sociologist, so you've come across this, talks about the flow state where your set of challenges meet your skills and when that's the sort of x equals y line when the two things are meeting and playing off each other whether you're playing chess or surfing or doing a show or it could be anything. You're in this sort of flow state which is generally what people describe as their sort of prime state. So that's a very lovely thing and it is a bit different from, it doesn't reflect how I'd be spending my time normally which probably would be tucked away somewhere writing in a coffee shop.

That's where I feel I kind of do recharge, but it's just another lovely thing to do and having the contrast of doing both is great. I mean there's nothing like it. It's a really lovely stretch of experience to have for a few months. Well, I guess I was trying to go with this or hope, wondering if there was anything there was like the need to feel in control without being out there but being out there but having it be a character so it's not really you, right? So like going, it sort of is me now. There's a very, there's very little difference I think of it in terms of a character in that only in terms of I'm not that, not quite that sort of, you know, witty and charismatic in real life all the time.

Some of the time on a good day, but it's me. It's not, I'm not, I think it has to be you because otherwise there'd be no longevity to what you're doing. You'd tie yourself out. So it is me. It's not a character in that sense, but I tend to think of it like that because the bit where it's a character to me is the kind of, oh, he can get in our minds and read our minds. That's not, I can't quite do that in real life compared to the promise of what it looks like on stage. So that's where the character comes in. But in terms of if you strip away that kind of skill base, the questionable skill base of what I'm actually doing and just in terms of how I am as a person, I think that's me. It's just a sort of a heightened version in a suit.

[40:06] Alan Seales: Do you ever get nervous at all that just the audience is not going to cooperate? That things, I mean, it is a script and you've got a set one moment every single night and you may know what it is from having seen it when I'm waiting in silence for something to happen and for the audience to respond in a way and every single night I think it won't happen. This will be the night it doesn't happen and every night it just, it sometimes it does brilliantly and sometimes I just about scrape through on that bit, but it's never not happened. But yeah, every single night, but it's not really nerves. I sort of enjoy it. I'm going through my head, right, what's the backup again? How do I, what do I do if this doesn't work?

Trying to remember the last time it happened, which is maybe, you know, three years ago or something. So no, I don't get nervous. I had a, I had an experience of getting a thing wrong in the first half of the show and I got it wrong three nights in a row. This was I think back in England at some point. I was warming the show up there and the first night it went wrong and it was a thing that if you're doing any sort of magic is familiar to you where you mess up at the very start. You know you messed up and no one else knows, but you now know this whole thing is going nowhere. So you're frantically trying to find ways of getting out of it and double back and, but while you're thinking that you're continuing on a sort of autopilot and it's becoming more and more absurd to do that.

So at some point you just have to go, okay, this is just going to fail. This bit's going to fail. It's not the end of the world. This bit just won't work. But like 10 minutes of leading someone that's going to go nowhere. So I had that, it happened on one night and I was sweating and I was panicking and also you realize there's, as much as you want to love the audience, there's a kind of a note of hostility because you're trying to fool them at some level and just how what it can spin on you like can spin on a dime. And when you feel something is failing suddenly like that whole audience feel like they're hostile. Like they were all there the night before. They know what's supposed to happen.

Now they're just looking at you. They can see through you. They can see you're a fraud and it's a horrible thing. And then this, but afterwards, five minutes afterwards or two minutes afterwards, they were all back on board. That thing hadn't worked. They were laughing that the next point they're all supposed to laugh. So okay, it was fine. So the second night it happened didn't bother me quite as much. The third night it happened is me making the same stupid mistake three times in a row. I was just narrating this experience. I was just kind of saying, oh, I've messed it up. This is what I'm feeling. I'm probably gonna, it's not gonna work. I'm not sweating. I've got this, but it wasn't really bothering me.

And it was the last little bit of tension that kind of got released, that last potential for hostility. And then the next night I went out thinking, so what if I could just properly love the audience rather than still having that little note of hostility? What would that mean? Which sounds really sappy and it sounds old as well after 18 years of touring to be thinking that, but it was a sort of an amazing little shift that may not have read to anybody else. But in terms of you, stuff you want to bring out with you when you step out because it changes that how you, there's ideas that I'm trying to communicate in the show. There's a real difference between communicating those ideas with a feeling of love and a feeling of thinking about six other things that you're trying to balance at the same time.

So that was a really lovely thing. Again, I'm only describing my kind of own internal experience of things which is not really necessarily that interesting, but it's a show about people. It's a show about the audience and it's a show which is unusual for magic. Normally the show's about the magician. If you're any sort of magician, it's about you looking clever. This is, I think probably unique in the world of whatever that is that it's not, it's definitely about the audience. So I love and I'll take anything that increases that feeling of a connection with the people that are sat there. I just, I really enjoy and the fact that it doesn't come always easily to a performer. Then you may look like you've got this guy on stage that adores you, but probably he's not or she isn't. There are probably a million other things they're thinking about or they might be doing it on autopilot.

So you can't take it for granted that that's happening. So to really kind of really lean into that and that the show is conducive to that because it's very much about people and is about the audience. That's a really nice thing to explore as a performer and when it's you, it's you. I'm not playing a part. I'm not playing somebody else. It's a very nice little sort of world to a nice experience to be having up there on stage.

[44:27] Alan Seales: Yeah, well I enjoyed it. I think everybody needs to go see it.

[44:30] Derren Brown: I agree. Twice ideally, two, three times.

[44:34] Alan Seales: Yes. So there's three standard questions I ask to wrap up every podcast. The first one is what motivates you?

[44:41] Derren Brown: What motivates me has only ever been what is enjoyable and interesting. Genuinely never had any ambition, as I said, never thought beyond the thing I'm doing at the time. So enjoyment and interest, that's it all right at the time.

[44:55] Alan Seales: And second question, what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[45:07] Derren Brown: If there's a formula for success, it's talent plus energy. And as any good Stoic would say, those are the two things that you can control. You can develop your talent and you can develop the energy that you put out there into the world with. If you have loads of talent, no energy, it's not going to get very far. And if you have all the energy but no talent to back it up, it's not going to get you very far either. The point is though, you only need to focus on those two things and they're both things that are under your control. All the rest of it, what other people do, whether you get the job, the right phone call, whether the fates collide in the right way is fortune. And we used to have a respect for fortune that there's this other half of life that we can't control and we've sort of forgotten that I think, particularly in a very positive goal-setting sort of culture like it is here.

It really gets forgotten about. And the trouble with that, it's great to think positively, of course, but the problem is then that if things go wrong, you then got failure to add to a whole list of problems. Like you didn't believe in yourself enough. And I think having a healthy respect for stuff goes on in life that we have no control over and that those things are fine. We can decide those things are fine. All the things that we can't control outside of our thoughts and actions, we can decide are fine. That doesn't mean we shouldn't go out and change the world if we want to, but even then there's a difference between me doing my very best to change the world and emotionally committing to outcomes that are not under my control.

It may happen a generation later after I'm dead and you only do a better job if you sort of do distinguish between those things. And I think in any kind of creative career, being able to go, it's just my talent and energy and I don't have to get caught up in the madness of what are other people doing? How come they got the job? How come they're getting paid more than me? How come? None of those things, all of those things are fine. And that if you let that thought drip into your soul and have faith that it's true and not just you're trying to fool yourself with it, make yourself feel better, I think that there's a real relief in that and it frees you up to do better work and ultimately I think be more successful.

[47:08] Derren Brown: Bryan Cranston has a really nice thing he talks about going to auditions and how your job as an actor is just to present your character at an audition. It's not to get the job. That is not your job. Your job is not to get the job. Your job is to present yourself well and present the text in a compelling way and so on. It's again very good sort of Stoic advice. If you look for him on YouTube, it's a really great watch.

[48:01] Alan Seales: Okay, so final question then. If you could only see one show for the rest of your life...

[48:07] Derren Brown: I'm not very good at sound bites, apologies. Sorry.

[48:10] Alan Seales: It doesn't need to be a soundbite. If you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[48:19] Derren Brown: Oh wow. Yeah, I don't think I would. I can think of a small handful of things I've loved the thought of going back and seeing them again and again. You just get sore, so I'd pass up on that. It sounds like a sort of torture.

[48:30] Alan Seales: All right. So where can we find you online? What are your social handles?

[48:34] Derren Brown: My social, I'm on Twitter, I'm at Derren Brown. It's D-E-R-R-E-N, which is a strange spelling, at Derren Brown. I'm on Instagram as well, the same thing, at Derren Brown. I do a lot of street photography, so I put some of my stuff on there too. That's it really. I'm derrenbrown.co.uk, which is my website. I think that's it, probably about the extent of my social media foray. Oh yeah, the show, I forget the important one. Yeah, also very importantly, derrenbrownsecret.com is the page for the show. So that's where people can get tickets and find out more about the show and I'm running till January, so I've still got a little while to go.

[48:54] Alan Seales: Yeah, cool. All right, you can get more of me at thetheaterpodcast.com or broadwaypodcastnetwork.com. You can find me online at theater underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter, facebook.com slash official theater podcast. Please leave a rating, a review. I love to read those. This is edited by Matthew Hendershot. Thank you to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music. And Derren Brown, thank you for being the guest on today's episode.

[49:10] Derren Brown: Thank you.