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I thought that that was excellent I found it amazing that he could manage to influence the people like that

Brilliant

What did you think?

I thought it was very good - very interesting.

I only wonder how much of that was actually bogus. It did seem to be backed up with some serious stuff (anchors, the experiment) but I still find it hard to believe that people would actually just walk up to a security guard and rob him.

I could, of course, be wrong!

Kati

Personally I'm not so sure about this one.

There were certainly some clever techniques but I thought that the end result could have been more dynamic than getting them to stage a robbery in a controlled environment. Obviously the environment had to be controlled by the very nature of what was happening but I just thought that the persuasion techniques could have been put to a more visual test scenario.

but I still find it hard to believe that people would actually just walk up to a security guard and rob him.

Kati - you'd be surprised - unfortunately!

I think that some of the bits were bogus to throw people off the scent a little. I was surprised that one of the guys said that he thought that he was stealing money from the Bank of England which was the building at the end of the road. Strange how he associated the money with the BoE as he was taking it from a Cash in Transit van.

I thought it was an excelent concept and excelently executed

My heart was genuinly racing during the final 'Heist" scene .... i am more than impressed and complete content that is was all 100% genuin ... the frightening aspect is that similar techniques have no doubt been used in much more heinous acts in the past few years.

I think was another Derren Brown triuph ... hats off to the man.

Rob

I thought it was a very good programme - well set out etc, BUT I'm always very sceptical when an effect is performed where the possibilty exists that members of the audience/public could be in on it.

I always remember the illusion that was performed where a HUGE vehicle (it's wheels were at least 6 feet high as far as I can remember!!) was enclosed in a cage. On the outside there was a ring of "members of the public" all joining hands in a circle outside the cage. Next, a curtain was draped around all 4 sides so that no-one, not even the public or any of the cameras, could see what was going on behind the curtain. The public maintained the continuous circle of hands and after a short while the curtain was lifted to reveal the vehicle had disappeared.
It was later revealed (by The Masked Magician I think) that the public was in on it and all that happened was the vehicle was moved out of the back, to another location hidden behind another curtain, whilst the curtain and the members of public were moved to one side, all out of shot of the camera.

Sorry about the waffle but my point is that in that vehicle trick, the magician reassured us that the assistants were all your average Joe Public when in fact they were all in on it. What's to say that this is any different ??

I thought everything about it was brilliant, and I thought it was an eellent and unique concept. I'm fairly sure it was all genuine, but a brilliant piece of telly.

I didn't think that it included any stooges, and most of my friends will probably think that it involved them to.

Well, firstly I really enjoyed the show, and once again it made me think that I wanna be able to all that psycho-mind stuff!

Just reading the previous posts, it made me think that in his shows, he always states at the beginning that no stooges will be used...although i don't think he did this time.

But if not, then it's very clever...well, it's all very clever anyway - i though a nice touch would have been to let them see how far they can get with the money - that would have been good, seeing them try to take it home on the bus!!

...or...instead of the film crew swooping on them - having fifty police men surround them.

I reckon the assistants in the sweet shop were the unsung stars of the show - their comments during the shoplifting 'exercise' were priceless! 'Look, there's another one of them', 'Have you noticed they're all in suits?' 'Let's just ban anyone in a suit' etc - we had a room full of people watching it and we were all in fits of laughter during that bit .

I thought it was an excellent show. I did feel sorry for the second guy who did the robbery though. He was clearly having a completely unexpected internal conflict when they caught him, but triggering all the anchors that had been installed over the fortnight was brillint!

Powerful beastie, yer actual subconscious. It pays to get to know it well

Mandrake wrote:I reckon the assistants in the sweet shop were the unsung stars of the show - their comments during the shoplifting 'exercise' were priceless! 'Look, there's another one of them', 'Have you noticed they're all in suits?' 'Let's just ban anyone in a suit' etc - we had a room full of people watching it and we were all in fits of laughter during that bit .

I gotta admit, I'm with u on this 1
I was laughing myself silly when this bit was on

If Derren's intent was to make a statement about the reasons for crimes being committed (as well as an entertaining show of course) then using actors would completely undermine the message if it ever got out. I am sure that it is genuine therefore, plus I don't think you'd need actors - just look back through history and you'll see similar things.

I too found the actual Heist quite intense and the shop assistants' reactions hilarious, especially when that one guy tried the '4 foot wall' confusion technique - 'yeah and this door's about 8 foot and it's about to close'; brilliant.

Wouldn't it be good for Derren to release his specials on a DVD? They're an important part of TV Magic history.

Cardza wrote:Wouldn't it be good for Derren to release his specials on a DVD? They're an important part of TV Magic history.

Does he have a DVD of his seires?

I really enjoyed this. I have to agree with Mandrake about the shop assistants, they almost stole the show. And they were definitely for real.

Was it real, was it doen with stooges? I don't know and don't particularly mind either way. It was a great piece of TV, Derren was excellent and there was stuff in there that does genuinely work.

And like all good mentalist type effects he didn't get 100% success. That was a great finish and probably points me to thinking it was a fake. But still greatly entertaining.