Derren Brown is to predict the lottery numbers on live television, as the draw is taking place.
The illusionist will be filmed live on Channel 4 on Wednesday night from a secret location, forecasting which numbers will be drawn from the National Lottery Machine live on BBC1.
Derren, 38, will then appear in another show on Friday night where he will reveal how he was able to predict the results, The Sun reports, and is so confident he will be right it is to be aired on all Channel 4 channels including E4, Film Four and More4.
A source said: “Derren is extremely confident he has worked out how to predict those magic balls.
“Of course the thing with this is not just the excitement of him doing it – but the fact he’ll tell people how to do it.
Derren Brown
“Magicians famously never give up their secrets and are frowned upon if they do. And the lotto bosses won’t be happy if he really has found the secret to predicting the National Lottery.”
This is the first of four stunts Derren has planned, some of which are so secret some senior Channel 4 executives reportedly don’t know what they are.
In How To Control The Nation next week the illusionist claims he will have thousands of viewers literally glued to their seats.
Derren said: “A piece of media which will be played to the viewing nation will have the effect of rendering them immobile. Not all of them, but it will basically stick a lot of people to their seats. It’s safe.”
Derren Victor Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British illusionist, mentalist, painter, writer, and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in television specials, stage productions, and British television series such as Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat. Since the first broadcast of his show Derren Brown: Mind Control in 2000, Brown has become increasingly well known for his “mind-reading” act. He has authored books for magicians as well as the general public. His caricature artwork has received gallery exhibition and is available in a single volume documenting his portrait collection.
Derren Brown
Though his performances of mind-reading and other feats of mentalism may appear to be the result of psychic or paranormal practices, he claims no such abilities. Brown states at the beginning of his Trick of the Mind programmes that he achieves his results using a combination of “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship”. Using his knowledge and skill, he appears to be able to predict and influence people’s thoughts with subtle suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical and psychological signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking.
Derren Brown
Brown was born in Purley, South London, educated at Whitgift School (where his father coached swimming), and studied Law and German at the University of Bristol. While there, he attended a show by the hypnotist Martin Taylor, which inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. Whilst an undergraduate, he started working as a conjuror, performing the traditional skills of close-up magic in bars and restaurants. In 1992, he started performing stage hypnosis shows at the University of Bristol under the stage name Derren V. Brown.
Mind Control
Brown began his television work with three sixty-minute specials produced over two years. In 1999 he was asked by Channel 4 to put a mind-reading programme together. The six part series Mind Control incorporated new footage with the best of his hour long shows. Selected highlights from the first series were later made available on DVD as Derren Brown — Inside Your Mind.
Andy Nyman was originally intended to front the programme but he wanted to concentrate on acting so Brown was recommended to the producers by comedian and close-up magician Jerry Sadowitz.
Trick of the Mind
Trick of the Mind was the title for Brown’s next series, which ran for three consecutive series. Unlike Mind Control it is all completely new material. The second series started on E4 on 11 April 2005 and was repeated on Channel 4. The third series started on 26 March 2006. Trick of the Mind series 1 and 2 are also available to buy on DVD.
Waking Dead
In June 2005, a clip from the second series was widely circulated on the internet. In this clip, Brown claims to have created a video game he calls “Waking Dead” which “is able to put roughly 1/3 of the people who play it into a catatonic trance”. In this episode, he places the video game in a pub to lure a supposedly unsuspecting patron into playing the game. He then “kidnaps” the catatonic “victim” and places him in a real-life recreation of the video game, having him fire an air gun at actors, pretending to be zombies and outfitted with explosive squibs.
The episode raised considerable controversy. Mick Grierson, credited in the episode as “Zombie Game Designer”, put up a website linking to various articles about the episode.
Trick or Treat
Trick or Treat started on Channel 4 in 2007. The focus of the show is on one volunteer who receives either a good experience or a bad experience. The experience the volunteers receive is decided by which card they choose. If they choose the card that says ‘Trick’ they receive a bad experience, and if they choose the card that says ‘Treat’ they receive a good experience. In the first series of ‘Trick or Treat’, the volunteer had no choice over the matter as the cards were ambigrams; however, in the second series, they were replaced by two more clearly defined cards that were no longer ambigrams.
Episodes of Trick or Treat are not preceded by Brown’s usual claim that no actors or stooges were used in the filming of the shows. Indeed, some participants (such as the ambulance crew in the last episode) are declared to be actors.
The second series of “Trick or Treat” began on 2 May 2008 at 22.00 on Channel 4. The third episode showed a slight change from the previous format, as actor David Tennant became the first celebrity to be used for the show. The two had met at a party where Tennant expressed interest in Brown’s work. While writing the second season Brown “thought it would be fun if one of the participants was well known”.
The last episode of the second series featured all volunteers of the series who had previously received a trick or treat. This episode highlighted the belief in superstition and the degree to which it can be applied.
Mind Control with Derren Brown
On 26 July 2007, the US based SCI FI Channel began showing six one-hour episodes of a series titled Mind Control with Derren Brown. Andrew O’Connor was executive producer, and the show was produced by Simon Mills who had produced the two previous series of Trick Or Treat as well as The Heist and The System for Objective Productions. Journalists in New York at the press announcement were shown preview clips of Brown “manipulating human behaviour” and given the promise of more surprises to come. Sci Fi’s press release described the show as an “original US produced version”. The show was a mix of new segments filmed in the US and older clips shown in earlier UK TV shows. The first showing release schedule was:
* Episode 1: “Shopping Mall Carpark” 26 July
* Episode 2: “Lying Car Salesman” 2 August
* Episode 3: “Exotic Dancers” 8 August
* Episode 4: “Receptive Children” 15 August (with Simon Pegg as a guest star)
* Episode 5: “Assault Course” 22 August
* Episode 6: “Disappearing Sun” 29 August
Derren Brown
Derren Brown: The Events
Filmed for Channel 4 in front of a live studio audience, this new series, (the first episode of which aired on 11 September 2009 at 21:00 was made up of four one-hour specials, during which Brown attempted what he described as “some of the most incredible feats to date”. The show consisted of a mixture of pre-recorded location pieces connected by theatre-based segments, with each of the four one-hour programmes building up to a major stunt performance. The first teasers broadcast were shown backwards. When played forwards, Brown explained that in his new series he would be revealing the “inner workings” of his tricks and “showing you how to get away with it”. Stunts included a live TV broadcast in which he suggested that he had successfully predicted the winning National Lottery, and incapacitating viewers, making them feel that they are stuck to their sofa, using a subliminal video. He has also projected an image into viewers’ minds and had them draw it on paper. His final event was an attempt to predict the outcome of a roulette wheel, staking £5,000 of a chosen viewer’s money on the outcome. The ball landed in the pocket numbered 30 just next to Brown’s choice of 8.
[edit] Derren Brown Investigates
Derren Brown Investigates began a run of three programs on Channel 4 on 10 May 2010. During the first program, Brown met with British psychic medium Joe Power. A second program concerns a Ukrainian system of human development that claims to teach people to see without the use of their eyes, and in a third he met a ghosthunter from the US. With these people he discussed their claims to have evidence of the paranormal.
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September 9th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Derren Brown appeared to make history last night by successfully predicting the numbers of the National Lottery.
The illusionist seemingly wrote down the six winning balls of the Midweek Lotto Draw hours before they were randomly chosen by the machine.
He had written down his predictions on six white balls earlier in the day which were turned back to front from the audience.
He then watched the lottery draw on a TV screen and turned round his white balls to reveal they were exactly the same as his own numbers 2, 11, 23, 28, 35 and 39.
His incredible feat was broadcast from a small studio live on Channel 4 at the same time as the BBC1 screened its Midweek Lotto programme at 10.35pm dispelling any rumours that the show was prerecorded.
Brown, 38, had been banned from buying a lottery ticket for the £2.4 million jackpot.
He has so far remained tight-lipped on how he did the trick but has promised to reveal all in a separate program to be broadcast tomorrow night.
It is the latest seemingly implausible stunt the illusionist has performed in front of a live audience.
Previous TV shows have seen him apparently play Russian roulette with a gun and contact the dead, while he has also toured the country performing live shows claiming to reads members’ of the audience’s minds.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
September 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Illusionist Derren Brown has claimed he was able to predict last week’s lottery numbers just by combining the random guesses of a panel of members of the public.
On Saturday 2.7 million viewers tuned in to Channel 4 to see Brown perform his latest trick in which he appeared to have correctly guessed the numbers.
He gathered a panel of 24 people who wrote down their predictions after studying the last year’s worth of numbers, and had them add up all the guesses for each ball and divide this total by 24 to get the average guess.
Brown claims that the predictions were correct because of the “wisdom of the crowd” theory which suggests that a large group of people making average guesses will come up with the correct figure as an average of all their attempts.
Broadcasting from a secret studio location, Brown told viewers he had written his predictions on a line of balls, which he then revealed after watching the draw live on BBC 1.
He said: “That’s a year of my life right there. I can’t believe it”, as he turned over the balls to reveal they were an exact match for the winning numbers: 2, 11, 23, 28, 35, 39.
He told viewers that he used: “A powerful beautiful secret that can only be achieved when we all put our heads together.”
He said his panel of 24 people only got one number right on their first attempt, but on the second they managed three and on the third they guessed four. By the time of last week’s draw they had honed their technique to get six correct guesses.
But Brown still left his audience guessing after stressing that he did not, and would never, fix the lottery machine before giving precise details of how – using weighted balls – he could have achieved that.
He said: “That concludes the tale of how we reached Wednesday night. All of my 24 people who were there know what happened and the success they had. But it’s quite possible that many of you simply won’t believe it. So you may choose not to believe any of what I’ve told you. Maybe you’ll still believe that it was some sort of ‘super technology’, What you choose to believe is up to you.”
April 30th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
They are taken to exams, job interviews and weddings in the hope they will bring good fortune.
But new research shows that, far from being a mere superstition, lucky charms do actually work.
A research team told half the golfers on a putting green that they were playing with a lucky ball, and the rest they were playing with a normal one.
Those with the lucky ball sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly two more putts on average than the others – an increase of of 35 per cent.
The results have sparked huge interest among behavioural psychologists who say they put luck in a different light.
The research from the University of Cologne was on just 28 students but the results are being considered significant.
But the figures will also be an encouragement for the millions who cling to a lucky shirt or ring on special occasions to bring them fortune.
And even celebrities have often admitted relying on a lucky charm.
Cameron Diaz has a necklace given to her by a friend because she thinks it will ward off the effects of aging, while Julie Walters kept a lucky piece of coal in her bag during one Oscars ceremony.
Perhaps the most bizarre tradition among celebrities is that Atonement star James McAvoy says ‘white rabbit’ on the first of every month to the first person he sees – because his grandmother taught him that it brings good luck.
September 9th, 2010 at 2:35 am
Derren Brown’s Hero at 30,000 Feet: liveblog tonight
We’re following Derren Brown’s Hero at 30,000 Feet live from 10pm tonight. Join us for 70-minutes of mindbending TV and the obligatory “Did that just happen?” moments
Pre-show preamble…
During his previous series of mindbending specials, Derren Brown was pretty clear about what he was going to do – beat a casino, guess the lottery numbers (although whether he did so is, of course, less clear), and generally keep us entertained with his bonkers but highly entertaining mix of misdirection and showmanship. This evening’s events are rather murkier around the edges, but I think we can be pretty hopeful of seeing something we won’t have seen before.
Brown is apparently going to take an ordinary person and set them a series of challenges – the biggest one will be to decide whether to take control of a Boeing 737 full of passengers set to crash at 500mph. As you do.
Here’s a video released to the Guardian this afternoon, which gives a little bit more of a feel for the show – but basically, we don’t know what to expect. I’ll be here from 10pm, so join me then as we find out more, and don’t forget to add your comments below.
9.57pm: Derren has appeared on Big Brother – he’s live from Leeds/Bradford airport standing next to a very large plane. I’m in Huddersfield right now, he should definitely stop by for a cup of tea afterwards.
10.01pm: Right, we’re off. I’m very much hoping for a show stuffed with what Derren does best tonight – hypnosis and mentalism. Fascinating as his illusion skills are, in my opinion his shows like Mind Control, Trick or Treat and one-off specials like The Heist are where he is truly brilliant. It’s often disturbing and surreal – I watched the episode of Tricks of the Mind where the guy ends up in the zombie video game again today, and it’s seriously messed up – but you can always be sure of seeing something remarkable.
According to Derren Brown’s blog, tonight’s show is about “engaging with life and understanding that it is the choices we make right now that define us, not what we’ve done in the past. One unwitting volunteer gets to have a deep understanding of this, and for him to experience real and lasting change, I have to push him to the extreme.”
Sounds pretty interesting, no?
10.03pm: Our hero for the evening is Matt. He is ordinary, has an unremarkable job in an insurance callcentre in Leeds, and hates flying. In a staged exercise at the audition, he doesn’t point out that there is smoke coming under the door, since he would apparently rather keep his head down than risk mild embarrassment by raising his hand and saying “ahem, excuse me, Mr Brown, it’s possible we’re all about to die in a blazing inferno”.
10.08pm: Derren has been trailing him for a month. He is robbed at gunpoint in a petrol station as a way for Derren to get him to think about his choices in life and give him the opportunity to reveal his true capabilities. In my day your mum just gave you a good talking to.
Derren leaves a jack-in-the-box on Matt’s doorstep. I hate clowns, and that’s just weird.
September 15th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Ofcom is investigating illusionist Derren Brown’s latest show over a scene which showed a man in a strait jacket, chained to a rail track.
The Channel 4 programme, Hero at 30,000 Feet, followed a volunteer with an “unconfident character” as Brown built up his courage, enabling him to take on a series of personal challenges.
The scene in question saw him escaping from an oncoming train in the scene.
Ofcom received 11 complaints from viewers about the safety of the stunt.
The media regulator is investigating the show, broadcast on Wednesday, 8 September, to see if it breaches broadcasting regulations.
It will consider whether the scene “condones or glamorises violent, dangerous or seriously antisocial behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour” or breaches “generally accepted standards” in broadcasting.
The programme culminated in the subject, Matt Galley, facing “a life-changing decision of whether to take control of a Boeing 737 packed with passengers, which he believes is about to fall out of the sky”.
In reality, he was moved from a real-life aeroplane to a flight simulator after being put under hypnosis by the illusionist.
A spokesman for Channel 4 said: “The railway track challenge was one of many confidence-building experiences within the show which prepared Matt for the finale.
“For all the experiences, the programme-makers have procedures in place to ensure the contestant’s welfare was protected.
“We would never recommend that viewers recreate any of the events in the programme.”
September 22nd, 2011 at 11:48 pm
THE legend of a ‘lucky’ dog is set to be put to the test by TV illusionist Derren Brown in Todmorden today.
Brown has been intrigued by the growing reputation of Victor, a statue dedicated to the four-legged friend of former mayor Albert Palmer, in the town’s Centre Vale Park.
Residents claim that patting the dog is a good omen, amid speculation a familly secured a lottery win after carrying out the ritual.
Broadcaster and journalist Dawn Porter has already been down to the park, as part of a Channel 4 series revolving around luck.
And now Brown, who has his own show on the channel, is making a beeline for Victor’s home, near the ruins of the former Centre Vale Mansion.
His publicist Anna Symons said: “Derren has been following and been inspired by the growing rumours that touching the dog statue in Centre Vale Park can make you lucky.
”Luck is something that has fascinated Derren for a long time and he wants to test these rumours that Todmorden is a lucky place.
“In order to do this he will be looking to create a massive luck test later in the week, which will be filmed.”
The dog’s likeness, 18-inches tall, stands next to the former family home of renowned social reformer John Fielden MP.
The statue’s previous fate was not so lucky – he was only moved to his present home after vandals hurled him into the Rochdale Canal several years ago.