Derren Brown

Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English mentalist, illusionist, and writer. He is a self-described "psychological illusionist" whose acts are often designed to expose the methods of those who claim to possess supernatural powers, such as faith healers and mediums. His live performances, which incorporate audience participation and comedy, often include statements describing how his results are achieved through a combination of psychology, showmanship, magic, misdirection, and suggestion.

Brown began performing in 1992, making his television debut with Mind Control (2000). He has since starred in several more shows for stage and television, including Something Wicked This Way Comes (2006) and Svengali (2012) which won him two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment, as well as The Experiments (2011) which won him a BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme at the 2012 awards. Brown made his Broadway debut with his 2019 stage show Secret. He has also written books for both magicians and the general public.

Derren Brown was born in the London Borough of Croydon on 27 February 1971, the son of Chris and Bob Brown. He was raised in Croydon's Purley area, which he described as "the epitome of middle-class suburbia", and he has a brother who is nine years younger than him. He was privately educated at Whitgift School in South Croydon, where his father was a swimming coach, before going on to study law and German at the University of Bristol. While there, he attended a hypnotist show by Martin S. Taylor, which inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. As 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 shows at the University of Bristol under the stage name Darren V. Brown; the "V" stood for "Victor".

At the International Magic shop in Clerkenwell, Brown met Scottish-American magician and comedian Jerry Sadowitz, who put him in touch with H&R publishers and magician Andrew O'Connor's production company Objective Productions. This led to his television debut with the show Mind Control (2000), which became one of the company's award-winning productions. After several shows with Objective, Brown set up his own company Vaudeville Productions with former Objective executives Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, and Paul Sandler, in order to produce his own shows as well as other projects with other performers. Its first show was Brown's TV special, Pushed to the Edge.

In 2008, Brown made a brief cameo in the supernatural drama series Crooked House. An interview with Brown was featured in Richard Dawkins' 2009 two-part documentary series The Enemies of Reason. Brown explained various psychological techniques used by purported psychics and spiritual mediums to manipulate their audiences. The most notable was cold reading, a technique which he discusses extensively in his book Tricks of the Mind. Some video footage was also used from his TV special Messiah. As part of Channel 4's 3D season in 2009, Brown presented Derren Brown's 3D Magic Spectacular. The show was not a new special from Brown, who instead presented a number of other magicians and clips. However, he did include one extract taken from a 2006 episode of Trick of the Mind in which he found an object that had been hidden in the streets of Venice by a volunteer.^{[citation needed]}

In January 2011, to celebrate 10 years since his first television appearance, Channel 4 held a special "Derren Brown Night". As well as re-showing The Heist (which had won a recent poll of favourite Brown specials) and one of his Enigma live shows, the channel screened a special documentary called Derren Brown: Behind the Mischief. It was a personal and candid film about Brown which included the story of how he met his co-writer (who was featured in Seance), his mother's feelings about his involvement in the Russian Roulette special, and an emotional visit back to his old school, university, and bars/pubs where he first began his career. Celebrity contributors included Matt Lucas, Jo Whiley, Stephen Merchant, and Simon Pegg. In January 2013, he was featured in a Channel 4 Deal or No Deal special, where he appeared to have predicted all the correct boxes to win the big jackpot of £250,000. That same year, he appeared in a comedy sketch at the beginning of an 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Deal or No Deal special.

In January 2014, Brown appeared as himself in the Sherlock episode "The Empty Hearse", as part of a theory regarding how the title character faked his own death. On 9 November 2018, he appeared as a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience to promote his Netflix special Sacrifice.

In February 2021, Brown appeared in a trailer for the horror video game Little Nightmares II, in which he discussed the nature of nightmares while some of the monsters featured in the game appeared around him.