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just saw the TV version online, i liked it a lot!
kind of disappointing derren didn't do, or at least didn't broadcast, Reminiscence (which just so happens to be my favorite effect in mentalism), it was my understanding he was going to do that one?

and god damn' that song at the end is catchy, must have some subliminal messages in it or something...

What is Reminiscence?

Enigma on the tv seemed a little - repetitive - compared to the previous shows. I bought the 2 previous stage show dvds - a little put off with Enigma.

Not sure if it was tv editing but it did look awfully like the spirit cabinet had a stooge in it - on one camera shot you could see someone putting a bag back on theyre head - it reminded me alot of 13 Steps and Corinders "heres a tenner be a sport" comments.

What was interesting was the tv interview on Derren Brown night - didnt he meet his current partner while performing the spirit cabinet for some students?

I'm pretty sure reminiscence was never in the show.

Derren's far too 'big' now to do something like Reminiscence, it would seriously harm his reputation. I think he did it in LIVE, but reworked for the seance style presentation.

I don't know what it was about the show, but I didn't find it particularly amazing. The finale struck me as overly complicated and confusing, for what was actually quite an obvious method.

The original finale was far better, and far more Derrenesque in presentation since it was all about "psychological influence" instead of "complete randomness".

The pictures were discussed as having deep psychological symbolism (confetti for parties and sociable fun, moose for masculinity, egg for creation and birth, juice for early childhood, etc.), and the audience voted by acclaim for their favourite one. Seven men came up, and the one holding the "audience favourite" stood aside for the rest of the routine, returning at the end to reveal the favourite had been predicted.

It's possible that the routine was changed because the original put too much emphasis on the pictures. I realised the ENIGMA anagram long before it was revealed (hey, I work on puzzles for a living) and told Derren as much after the show. Maybe too many other people were anticipating the big reveal, and the only way to prevent this was to take as much interest as possible away from the content of the pictures.

At the Oxford show, we were told that those pictures represented various food and other essestial groupings yet in the TV version Derren specifically said they represented nothing, no food groups etc!

Mandrake wrote:At the Oxford show, we were told that those pictures represented various food and other essestial groupings yet in the TV version Derren specifically said they represented nothing, no food groups etc!

Hmm, sounds like he went through a couple of revisions.

In the pre-tour show in May, and again in London in July, the pictures were presented as deeply symbolic. (The pre-tour show mentioned they were taken from the "Berglasian psychological profiling protocol", but that was dropped by July.) In Manchester the following July they were presented as "some bits of clip art we grabbed, none of them mean anything". This must have been the final revision, since it was the version shown on TV. Oxford must have been something in between.

I'm wondering now what food group confetti falls into. And needles.

The "random" version did flow better -- at least on stage -- and it avoided having a seventh man hanging about like a gooseberry throughout the long routine, but it lost a lot of the charm. And as a closer, "nothing we do is random" isn't nearly as jaw-dropping as "I've been manipulating your every move for the past ten minutes".

Just got the DVD delivered from the postie. Strangely it is just the TV version on the disc, no bonuses at all unlike the other two. Even stranger is that it is exactly the same as the one you can view online for free without them.

Still a great show, but would have been nice to see the foil routine.

His latest dvd releases have been a let down. The specials collection didnt have them all and now Enigma without the unseen pieces

Courtesy of www.magicweek.co.uk:

Enigma

9pm on Friday 22nd April (1 hour 45 minutes) on E4.

"The incredible Derren Brown presents Enigma, the recording of his latest sell-out live theatre tour. It's another jaw-dropping, show-stopping theatrical event that leaves the live audience and viewers in awe of Derren's incredible ability to control minds, manipulate thoughts and tickle the funny bone. Filmed live in front of a capacity crowd at the New Wimbledon Theatre, Derren Brown selects random members of the audience to participate in a wide range of experiments and demonstrations, including the Victorian phenomena of somnambulism and the spooky Spirit Cabinet."