Retro Yakking

I was hoping that Derren Brown would admit to his ‘prediction’ of Wednesday’s lottery draw being some sort of camera trick, or at least that the relative ‘balls-up’ outlined in yesterday’s post was all part of a much larger deception, or as he likes to call his stunts, a ‘misdirection’.

Let’s be honest: he was never going to be revealing his ’solution’ until the very end of the show, otherwise Channel 4’s viewing figures might have suffered something of a drop as people switch over to BBC for the latest episode of ‘New Tricks’.

Spoilers follow this point, so if you still haven’t seen Friday’s show and don’t want to know what happened, don’t hit the continue reading link.

We were treated to a series of fairly compelling psychological tricks based on the idea of random selection and prediction. These, we are led to believe, were all demonstrations of the preparatory ‘training’ Brown supposedly undertook in the lead up to his big trick.

The first half of the show consisted of two tricks designed to bed us into the idea that Brown is able to predict human reactions, which is pretty much his comfort zone, and what he is best at doing. The second half dealt with the actual prediction. It wasn’t Brown himself that successfully ‘guessed’ Wednesday’s lottery numbers, but a group of people who wrote down a bunch of numbers and took an average to arrive at the definitive six.

All very impressive. That was, until the final scene of the segment, where Brown sealed group’s balls (ahem) in an airtight container to be transported to the studio and placed on the stand seen in Wednesday’s event. Nothing convinced me for sure that the balls in the tube were definitely the balls you saw in the broadcast.

In short, I was left somewhat disappointed. There was no response to the claims of fake camera wobble or superimposition of pre-recorded footage other than a dismissal of all suggestions that it could have been ’super technology’. Well Derren, it wasn’t exactly super technology, rather an increasingly common camera trick that can be executed relatively cheaply - granted, with quite a bit of practice - but nonetheless doable with non-magical techniques, and you probably know it.

But in truth, why would, or even should he admit to it? After all, a good magician never reveals his tricks, so maybe I ought to shut up about all that. However, I ended up watching the show in anticipation of how he would get out of this potentially sticky situation, which ruined the whole thing slightly for me.

You see, it’s all about entertainment, and there’s a certain suspension of disbelief required in this case, as indeed in most of his tricks. I suppose my scepticism spoiled my enjoyment: I was expecting a ‘Breaking the Magician’s Code‘ style episode, but all I got was a fairly cheap gimmick of how you, too could win the lottery using the same method. But as I said, it’s probably my own fault: I read into the whole thing way too much to actually enjoy the show.

Will someone win some money using the technique outlined? I’ll wager yes, but that’s a prediction based on simple mathematics and not hoodwinkery.

One thing’s for certain, “it was just a trick”, as Derren went to great lengths to point out himself. Well, yes it was, and a rather good one too. But if you were tuning in to last night’s show for some sort of explanation of the camera trickery as I was, you’ll have been somewhat underwhelmed.

Will I watch the second show? Most likely not, though it depends on what’s on telly. I still quite like Derren Brown as a performer, it’s just on this particular occasion I built the whole thing up too much. It was truly ambitious stuff, and a valiant attempt, but I’m wondering just how many actually bought the trick.

Were you impressed? I’d love to know. Oh, and if you’re still interested in winning the lottery, I suggest taking a look at this article from the Daily Mail. Wow, never thought I would be recommending a story from that particular paper… but their advice not to enter a syndicate seems to directly contradict Derren’s. Typical, eh?

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