‘Look into my eyes...’

BROWN’S GREATEST HITS

RUSSIAN ROULETTE, 2003

A member of the public loads a revolver with a real bullet, Derren Brown takes it and plays Russian roulette on live TV, appearing to risk shooting himself in the head. ‘That event was the big shift in being known so I’m grateful for it. The police got into trouble, so they defended themselves by saying we had blank bullets on our list of things that we were bringing in, but we also had real bullets. I wanted to scream: “If we had done it with blank bullets it would still be pretty dangerous!”’

SEANCE, 2004

Brown appears to summon the dead. A group of students is helped to use a ouija board and automatic writing to learn details about the life and death of a girl called Jane. A medium holds a seance and speaks in her voice – before Brown reveals that Jane is a fiction. ‘I loved that one. A creative-writing student called Iain Sharkey took part. We became friends and he’s now my principle co-writer.’

THE HEIST, 2006

After choosing a group of 13 responsible men and women according to their psychological profiles, Brown carries out tests to see which four are secretly most capable of deviant behaviour. He creates mental triggers – a song, a phrase and the colour green – then sets up the chance to rob a security guard of £100,000. Three of them do. ‘The most popular show of them all. A good one, and my favourite until I started doing the shows that helped people.’

HOW TO WIN THE LOTTERY, 2009

After predicting the numbers for that week’s draw, Brown offers to explain how he did it. ‘The only one I wasn’t happy with, for a very specific reason. The whole thing became so big – there were questions in Parliament – that we couldn’t show the twist at the end because it would have raised more questions. So you’re just left with a fishy explanation. It’s always going to sit uncomfortably with me.’

APOCALYPSE, 2012

Brown convinces a selfconfessed lazy teacher called Steven that a meteorite has struck the Earth and unleashed a virus that turns people into zombies. Steven turns out to be a hero. ‘My favourite,’ says Brown. ‘Hero At 30,000 Feet had a guy with no confidence having to land a plane. Apocalypse came from a desire to do a similar thing but bigger. It took eight months to plan. I don’t know if the show can take credit for it, but Steven’s life has changed a lot since.’