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theguardian.com | 3 hrs. 46 min. ago

Derren Brown turns into Nostradamus – and I predict you’ll submit to one gasp-inducing stunt after another

#Audience #Course #four #set #stage #turn

Apollo theatre, LondonProphecies are impossibly fulfilled by the superstar who takes his cue from the legendary French seer in his show Only HumanDo we have free will – or are the words I am about to write, the four stars twinkling atop this review, pre-ordained? That’s the stuff Derren Brown conjures with in his new show Only Human, which takes its inspiration from Nostradamus’s ability to foresee the future.

Nostradamus used divination techniques – 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 – and so, in one remarkable sequence, Brown orchestrates something similar for a hypnotised member of his crowd.This of course is territory Brown has always made his own: 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’ve been spoiled by his jaw-dropping back catalogue), this current collection of stunts doesn’t feel all that high-powered. Predicting an audience member’s 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’s seating is too cramped for the mass mobility the routine requires.

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