Derren Brown : Sacrifice

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Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby Mandrake » Oct 13th, '18, 21:52



Anyone planning to watch this on Netflix next week? Anyone care?

As usual the press are starting to gang up even before the programme has aired, here's one from The Guardian....

Derren Brown: Sacrifice – have the illusionist’s party tricks lost their shine?
Brown, once about entertainment and fun, has now restyled himself as an all-powerful, egocentric sage. And he’s lost his magic in the process

Fiona Sturges

Derren Brown, celebrated illusionist and king of coercion, is a clever man. He discovers things about people that the rest of us cannot, because he can see into their souls. Derren Brown looks down at the camera when he talks on TV because it makes him appear authoritative and a little bit menacing. Derren Brown has a new TV special called Derren Brown: Sacrifice (from Friday, Netflix), in which a man with a malfunctioning moral code must learn the error of his ways. But it is mainly about Derren Brown and his astonishing genius, hence his name being uppermost in the title.

The mentalist, who once was all about entertainment and fun, has now restyled himself as an all-powerful sage. A sage who sees intolerance as being symptomatic of a bigger problem. He has therefore devised a plan to fix the little people by teaching them about kindness, empathy and fearlessness, after which we will all have learned the most incredible lesson. Derren Brown’s guinea pig here is a white man called Phil who has questionable views on immigration, and whom Brown hopes he can rewire as a 21st-century hero using a mysterious neck implant, a phone app and the power of suggestion.


Brown has decided the best way that this Florida-born father of two – who has a third child on the way – can demonstrate his growth as a kind and loving human is by rescuing a Mexican man from being shot by a gang of bikers, and that he should do this by taking the bullet himself. Apparently, care in the community doesn’t cut it any more.


Brown believes that providing Phil with an independent psychological evaluation before taking part in the show gives him carte blanche to reach inside his mind and make him a “better” human being. The magician-turned-guru wants us to know he’s on the side of the angels and so says things like: “It’s in the dialogue between sides that we find the truth, and humanity flourishes”, apparently unaware that he sounds – how to put this? – like a sanctimonious knobhead.

Brown is keen to assure us that “everything you see is 100% real”, like a secondhand car salesman who says that the mileage on that motor definitely hasn’t been tampered with, although the jeopardy is never his. Even David Blaine’s self-aggrandising stunts begin and end with David Blaine. Brown is a lot like the huckster hypnotists you see on YouTube getting grown men to bark like dogs and women to climax in their seats, only he is educated, has a bottomless budget and wears nice suits, all of which make him appear trustworthy and morally upstanding. He likes to hug the subjects of his “experiments” at the end so that, rather than punching him in the face and calling their lawyers, they hug him back and thank him for allowing them to soil themselves in front of the nation.

Derren Brown’s God complex has reached such gargantuan proportions that he makes Kanye West look like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Derren Brown is a clever man, but his party tricks have lost their shine. Derren Brown needs to put a bloody sock in it.


Hmmmm... not exactly an open minded piece but perhaps only to be expected, same thing happened with Russian Roulette, Messiah and Miracle. Let's wait and see!

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby russpie » Oct 15th, '18, 17:50

She forgot the bit about the live shows selling out, his popularity with the public & all the awards he keeps winning.

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby Mandrake » Oct 15th, '18, 22:50

I get the impression she just doesn't like him and put in a few nice bits to try and 'balance' the article, or get it past her editor! It would have been better to wait until the show aired and she might find more ammo to use.

Derren once said he'd had far more complaints from the public about Messiah than about Russian Roulette which indicates that people don't mind if he blows his brains out as long as he doesn't mess with God :D .

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby Mandrake » Oct 24th, '18, 21:49

Wikki has a page dedicated to this programme...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice ... wn_special) - doesn't get to the exact page but there's a link from there!

Has anyone seen the show yet? I'm due to see it sometime soon when my mate with a Netflix account is ready to watch it....

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby mark lewis » Oct 28th, '18, 13:40

Oh, once you get famous you get torn to pieces. The press build you up and then take you down. It is par for the course. Think of all the celebrity magicians ---they all get criticised eventually. Think of Paul Daniels for example------relentless criticism. It is par for the course. Quite frankly I am surprised that it hasn't happened sooner for Derren Brown. He has had a long honeymoon.

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby Mandrake » Oct 28th, '18, 14:31

Sadly the British press excell at the process of build 'em up, knock 'em down again.

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Re: Derren Brown : Sacrifice

Postby Mandrake » Jan 27th, '20, 11:57

Bump!! Did anyone here watch the programme?

Sadly I didn't get to see it back in 2018 but thanks to a special offer via Sky I have Netflix for three months so finally got to see it. I can see where Fiona was coming from and she had obviously seen a preview of Sacrifice. I thought the comments were harsh and lacked journalistic balance but what do I know about being a journalist?

I much prefer Derren doing his live shows on tour but I guess he will still be working on things like Sacrifice - he seems to enjoy them!

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