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Derren Brown's Unbelievable Actors
Simon Lipkin & Yolanda Ovide in Unbelievable
After its run of previews out of town, Derren Brown's new magic show had its London press night last week. I plan to see it early next month and encourage you to do the same.
This post isn't about the content of the show but more about the overall concept. I know a bunch of the talented people involved. I've been lucky enough to get random sneak peeks of its development in all sorts of weird ways – including a time I arrived home five years ago to find my actor flatmate, who I didn't even know was part of the show's workshops, practicing a giant magic trick in my living room.
But the main reason I'm intrigued about the show is that I'm a little hooked by the concept of replacing magicians with actors and musicians and whether it could become a trend we see across magic.
This aspect of the show is no secret; it's a big part of the marketing. Derren himself has pointed it out multiple times, like in a discussion with The Guardian:
Brown said that creating a magic show using actors and musicians directed by him, O’Connor and Nyman “just felt like a really appealing idea.”
“Unbelievable” is a magic show without professional magicians, and some of the seven-person cast are making their West End debuts. The result is what Brown called a production without ego. There is no lead role.
Musicians are used to rehearsing and repeating, which helps when learning magic tricks. In general, because most of the cast members did not have a background in magic, they approached the material with an open mind and did not have to unlearn habits, the show creators said.
It's fascinating – I've worked with many magicians on stage shows and TV shows, and there have been plenty of times I've wished we could swap them out for actors. By doing so, Derren's team gets complete control of the show and can take it in any direction – with singing, music, and dance.
Trust me – a rehearsal room with an actor is 1,000 times better than a rehearsal room with a magician. Every magic consultant raves about the days they work on non-magician projects.
Personally, the handful of days I helped produce magic on an ice skating show and Groundhog Day: The Musical were far more exciting than 90% of the days I've worked with magicians (sorry, magicians). And on that ice show, the stars were all professional athletes and ex-Olympians – boy, they knew how to rehearse/train, and their abilities beyond operating the magic were incredible.
Very few magicians have trained in stagecraft (this is an unfortunate fact).
Even Nathan, One Ahead's content producer, and I often talk about a specific kind of one-person interactive magic play we'd like to write to be performed by an actor. It's just a more exciting prospect for us to entertain that way.
Derren's team have spent decades pulling off impossible illusions and stunts, but they've never been able to make him appear on multiple stages at the same time. If this new show "Unbelievable" is a success, it could just as well be playing on stages worldwide simultaneously with different actors.
So, what does this mean for magic? Is it a sign towards a new trend of magic shows starring non-magicians? Might the next famous magicians or popular magic shows be cast entirely with actors, acrobats or stunt performers?
It's hard to know, but today, we'll look at the reviews for Derren's show and specifically how lay audiences react to a magic show propped up on the idea of performing actors instead of magicians.
And to be honest, this sort of thing always fascinated me.
I remember seeing Derek DelGaudio's show in New York and listening to the audience members around me after the show ask each other whether Derek was a magician or an actor.
I was taken aback by it – why did they ask, and why did it matter to them? Was it more or less impressive that Derek is primarily a magician?
There are plenty of times I've watched magicians perform the easiest of tricks and blow spectators' minds, and I've sat and wondered how much of their reaction is because they believe in the lie of the magician.
For example, when you see David Blaine bite and restore a borrowed coin (a trick a child could perform in part with the same technical ability) – how much of the viewers' reaction comes from Blaine's character?
Equally, the same goes for Justin Willman, who we know has been practising magic from a young age. Heck, the same goes for a magician who rocks up to perform magic at a wedding – who, by simply being a "magician", carries a particular backstory with them.
But if audiences are openly told the magic is being performed by actors who we assume have never performed magic before, do audiences still react the same way? Maybe the speed at which they learned the skill enhances or downplays the illusion's impossibility.
It's a big question Derren had to ask himself, too.
“I was worried that if you saw people you knew weren’t professional magicians, would you not buy into them?” Brown said. But he found the opposite to be true, saying that it showed the humanity and vulnerability of the performers.
Frustratingly, the show's reviews don't all share the conclusion Derren had when promoting the show. But to be honest, I think the reviews generally seem to use the fact that the show features actors as a sort of scapegoat to blame anything they didn't enjoy about the show – well, it must be because it's actors, not magicians.
The Guardian mentions it optimistically:
There’s plenty to enjoy here as a cast of non-magicians subvert conjuring convention with song, dance and synchronised skill.
The Art's Desk had this to say:
Turns out that none of the cast we see are magicians; they're actors working to a script, having rehearsed their parts.
That approach brings pluses and minuses. On the credit side, it underpins a very Derren Brown message that we are all actors who present an exterior that can fool others into believing that it’s also our interior. Of course that isn't so - what others see is constructed by ourselves for their consumption. There’s also a bit of preachiness about the value of showing gratitude, a laudable, if somewhat tacked-on sentiment, that is less embedded in magic’s ethos, although it was wonderful to see a long overdue roll call of magicians’ assistants given credit for over a century’s work.
On the deficit side, practised stage magicians always carry an air of danger, not necessarily related to audience participation, of which there is plenty in this show. It's a delicious fear prompted by their ability to call upon superpowers of suggestion, to misdirect us against our will, to hide their true intentions with a sleight of hand or the slickest of patter. The programme notes that the show has been in gestation for three years and has been worked on significantly in rehearsals to match the material to the personalities and skills of the cast. But that unusual structural approach, however much it excited the writers, lends the chumminess of pantomime to tricks that might benefit from an undertow of unused malevolence.
Time Out was perhaps more critical:
Seven actors try to pass themselves off as magicians in this uneven high-concept show from master mentalist Brown.
It’s just that the illusion that these performers are magicians doesn’t always hold. They’re brilliant actors. They’re brilliant musicians. They’ve learned to do these tricks brilliantly. The astonishingly versatile Simon Lipkin, who deservedly gets the most stage time, commands proceedings with natural delivery and a sense of authority, and Samuel Creasey has an easy, loveable presence. The rest don’t get much to do, though, and sometimes the cracks in the polish are too evident: nervousness in the execution, slight faltering when things go off-script.
The tricky thing I found when searching the reviews is that if you see the show and the fact the cast are actors doesn't cross your mind, then I suppose you wouldn't mention it in the review. Then again, I didn't find any reviews which stated the show was better because of its use of actors.
And, of course, all we can really do is compare these reviews to the ones of group magic shows that featured only performing magicians. And let's be honest, the reviews for the magic shows featuring magicians aren't that great:
Macho magic show bisects and belittles its female stars. A major gender imbalance undermines the slick and intriguing acts in this Vegas-style fiesta of illusion.
That was The Guardian's headline and tagline for a group magic show in London. I'll let you try to guess which show they were writing about. Here's another Guardian headline and tagline for another group magic show:
Pick ‘n’ mix variety show loses its magic. This confusing concoction of cabaret, holiday camp entertainment, panto and pub act fails to showcase its talented illusionists.
And a final Guardian headline for a different group magic show in London:
Be very amazed. This garish sleight-of-hand variety show would work better on the telly.
What was The Guardian's take again on Derren's new show, filled with actors playing magicians?
Derren Brown presents an evening of magic by proxy. There’s plenty to enjoy here as a cast of non-magicians subvert conjuring convention with song, dance and synchronised skill.
Maybe the fact the cast is filled with actors is an easy out for anyone with anything to dislike about Derren's new show. Perhaps the wider context of seeing his name everywhere in the marketing and then actors on stage instead adds to that feeling. Leaning into their musical and dance ability must highlight it further.
Maybe the best thing to compare Unbelievable is Magic Goes Wrong, a comedy play featuring a cast of actors playing magicians. The Guardian's headline:
Penn & Teller mangle minds with Mischief Theatre. Stunts and tricks go awry in this slapstick romp, though the running gag makes it hard to conjure suspense.
Time will tell if this becomes a booming trend in magic. The idea of replacing magicians with actors certainly seems to have been happily embraced by the magic community, whom I wasn't expecting to react so well – perhaps it's because Derren Brown is the one leading the project.
And here's the thing – say I produced an ensemble show with actors playing the role of magicians – what if I wasn't Derren Brown, and I didn't make a big deal out of the fact the cast were actors – if the lines were blurred, would the reviewers have something to fall back on – would they even know they're actors?
Actors are generally more talented broadly than magicians, and in many ways, they're easier for show producers to work with and cast. So, I do believe Derren's team have broken the seal, and we will see more producers excited by the idea.
Perhaps Unbelievable represents a major turning point for magic, even if its role is only to open the door for other show producers to run through.
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