Derren Brown is arguably one of the most famous and influential magic performers in the world, and he has been retaining this status for over twenty years.
Brown started his career as a close-up magician with an interest in mind reading and hypnosis. The turning point happened because of television: Channel Four was looking for a mentalist to launch a new format, and Brown seemed the best fit.
His success on television led him to create a theatre show, which toured the UK extensively. From there, he made seventeen more TV specials, two specials for Netflix, and brought nine more original theatre shows to the stage, including one run on Broadway.
He is also a legend among magicians for his unique thinking, original magic, and impossible-to-detect methods.
Derren Brown has just started touring with his new theatre show, Only Human.
The debut was set to be in High Wycombe on April 4th, but Brown had to cancel the first weekend of shows and even the first show of the following week, for technical issues. The tour finally kicked off in Bromley on April 9th.
Normally, Brown tours the UK with the show for around six months, to then launch the London residency for several more months. At the moment, only the tour is out, and we can only predict that the show will debut in London later this year.
Brown also hasn't appeared much on television or radio to promote the show as he usually would for previous shows. It seems the show continues to take up his focus at this early stage.
Everything about the show is still secret. We haven't seen it yet (although we certainly will!), but we thought this was the perfect chance to take a look behind the curtain into the creative process for writing a Derren Brown show.
We are taking the information within the article from publicly available sources, such as video interviews and podcasts. Derren Brown also wrote a wonderful book detailing his thinking on his theatre work, Notes From a Fellow Traveller.
Some of the insights in here will genuinely surprise you.
Working As A Team
"What I try and do is come up with something that you wouldn't get anywhere else. You don't quite get it in a play, you don't get it at a magic show. I really try and come up with something that's unique and also that over-delivers, that gives you more than you were expecting."
The first striking element is—when the show is announced, nobody knows what it will be about, not even Brown himself.
This is due to managing and logistics reasons, and because they have to start selling tickets way in advance. So much so that people buy tickets for something that still doesn't exist—which sounds like a trick in itself, right?
The surprising realization is that Derren and his team are forced to name the show, sometimes up to eight months before they decide what it will be about.
Months pass, and then the show goes through a writing phase and then rehearsals. During this time, Brown doesn't work alone but relies on a team of writers and creatives with different backgrounds.
He wrote most of the shows with Andy Nyman and Andrew O'Connor. These people have a strong background in theatre and all the creative elements that can make a show successful, as well as a keen understanding of magic.
