{"id":656487,"date":"2026-10-25T09:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T09:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656487\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T09:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T09:02:13","slug":"derren-brown-turns-into-nostradamus-and-i-predict-youll-submit-to-one-gasp-inducing-stunt-after-another-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656487\/","title":{"rendered":"Derren Brown turns into Nostradamus \u2013 and I predict you\u2019ll submit to one gasp-inducing stunt after another | Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do we have free will \u2013 or are the words I am about to write, the four stars twinkling atop this review, pre-ordained? That\u2019s the stuff Derren Brown<\/a> conjures with in his new show Only Human, which takes its inspiration from Nostradamus\u2019s ability to foresee the future. Nostradamus used divination techniques \u2013 and so Brown engineers a stunt in which his audience, en masse, dowse a waterway in the building next door. Nostradamus had a near-death experience \u2013 and so, in one remarkable sequence, Brown orchestrates something similar for a hypnotised member of his crowd.<\/p>\n

This of course is territory Brown has always made his own<\/a>: strip away the free will rhetoric and Nostradamus folderol, and artful dodger Derren stands revealed, doing the same mentalism and mesmerism tricks as ever. By the interval (and acknowledging that we\u2019ve been spoiled by his jaw-dropping back catalogue), this current collection of stunts doesn\u2019t feel all that high-powered. Predicting an audience member\u2019s yes\/no answers to a series of questions is amazing, yes, but low stakes. And that water divination set-piece misfires: only one of his three selected dowsers is up to the task, and the venue\u2019s seating is too cramped for the mass mobility the routine requires.<\/p>\n

Act two raises the bar. First there\u2019s a routine which \u2013 not to give anything away \u2013 is extraordinary and disconcerting in equal measure. The all-enveloping theatrics of the sequence (video, booming sound, whiplash set changes) are so giddying, one loses sight of the point it\u2019s trying to prove. But there\u2019s no denying it gives the gig lift-off, into a stratosphere of one gasp-inducing stunt after another. There\u2019s a mind-reading number involving photos that audience members submit at the interval, followed by a reveal showing how prophecies made in the show\u2019s first half have now, quite impossibly, been fulfilled.<\/p>\n

You can grasp at explanations for that, or for the closing coup involving a bowl of Smarties and a 16th-century augury. Or \u2013 we have no free will, after all \u2013 you can submit to Brown\u2019s powers and be astonished.<\/p>\n

At the Apollo theatre, London<\/a>, until 30 January<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do we have free will \u2013 or are the words I am about to write, the four stars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-656487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}