Derren Brown's Trick or Treat Kidnapping

What on Earth was that?

First of all I should probably make clear that I'm not a great fan of the Trick or Treat shows. While they are occasionally enchanting, I fail, with most of them, to see any kind of magical beauty, which is a sorry shame, when Derren is as talented a performer as he is.

The premise isn't all together bad. It's a conflicted theme, fairground theme music combined with the the Derren devil logo. It's reasonably well thought out. One day, quite out of the blue, life stops or stands still, or something strange happens and before you know it, Derren is upon you. You never know where or when or even if it's going to happen. And then something happens. Either something enchanting and magical and quite surreal, or something dark, disturbing and rather scary.

I do like the rather unsettling way that Derren makes his entrance in each show. This episode was particularly good. The lights go out and everybody freezes. Of course, as viewers, we couldn't appreciate that the same way the participant could.

I just think that some of the shows lack magic. And at the end of the day, Derren is a magician, or psychological illusionist if you prefer. But it's all the same. I think that each show should have that magical touch, that enchantment, that sense of extraordinariness that real life often lacks. That is the whole point of magic. I feel that this episode, in particular, lacked that.

On a show like that, this is a communication issue. It could be something that was lost in the edit, rather than it being something that wasn't there in the first place. We'll never know.

And wasn't that kidnapping the most friendly and considerate kidnapping in the world? Perhaps the reason why I didn't like this particular episode was a case of it being overhyped and underdelivered. It wasn't really a kidnapping at all. All the abductors had going for them was the element of surprise - the participant did not know when it was going to happen. But they told her that Derren had sent them, and thus it ceased to be a kidnapping. As a friend of mine said, they could have had some real fun with that.

Anyway, that's it until next week. I hope for a better show.

But while I'm on the subject of Derren Brown, I came, rather gleefully, into the knowledge that my third edition signed copy of Pure Effect - now out of print - is worth around £150! An unsigned one sold on eBay a few weeks ago for £120. That did truly brighten my day.

That's it for now. Tomorrow on my blog, I think it's time to get into some discussion. I'm going to talk about one of my favourite subjects: card tricks! I might even share a few with you.

Best Wishes,
Michael Munroe