The multi-award winning master of mind control and illusion, best known for his UK television career which began in 2000 with Mind Control, will be returning to the Bristol at the end of May. Derren Brown, is bringing his Showman tour to Bristol Hippodrome as part of an eight-month UK tour - his biggest in 20 years.
Derren lived in Bristol for many years and said "it's like coming home" every time he returns to the city. "It's probably my favourite place to come when I'm touring," said Derren.
The content of Showman remains a closely-guarded secret but Derren has revealed: “The heart of the show is about remembering what’s important. Like how the very things that we find most isolating in life - our fears and difficulties - actually connect us.
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“Framed with what I think will be some extraordinary demonstrations of my voodoo”. The audience members for each show are invited to bring a small object of sentimental value to them, but how these personal objects will be used remains a mystery.
Like Derren Brown’s previous shows, the audience will be expected to participate. He will choose audience members by throwing a frisbee, that they can pass on to someone else if they do not wish to be on stage.
Derren said in a promotional video that as the brand new show tours, it is “constantly evolving” with each performance being different. The tour was delayed due to the lockdown but the themes explored have become more relevant as a result of the global pandemic.
Derren said: “The show was due to go on the road the day the first lockdown happened. But the show was about- and still is about- in its heart, how the things that are difficult or feel isolating in life, actually join us together.
“Although it’s not a show about the pandemic at all, it meant that we could go back and lean into the topics that were already there.” He told Bristol Live "it is a very personal show, it has a different feel from the others.
"I'm 51 now, I think it has a more grown up, more mature feel to it too. I always let the things I do grow up with me and try to make them about whatever is important to me at the time.
"It's had the best reviews of anything I've ever done, which is really nice, especially when it's something that means a lot to you, personally as well."
Derren Brown began performing while a student at Bristol University. After attending a hypnotic show held in the Avon Gorge Room of the Students’ Union he decided he would learn hypnosis.
He studied the subject extensively and went on to learn magic and started performing on students before getting bookings at small venues, with his first ever theatre show at the Tobacco Factory.
Derren said: "I used to live up in Clifton Village and used to do magic around the tables in a restaurant called Byzantine in Mary Redcliffe and The Glass Boat on the Welsh Back and the Blue Goose. That's where it all got going.
"The last time I was [at the Hippodrome] I got left a note from Dara O'Brian who'd been there the week before, saying, 'Dear Derren, enjoy the best audience in the country.' So it's not just me either, it's a pretty special thing coming to Bristol.
"I still miss it, I've thought occasionally of moving back but it's always slightly odd when you move back to somewhere, it's almost as if the time in between never happened. Whenever I do come back to Bristol, I walk around expecting to bump into people that I knew and weirdly imagine them the same age as they were.
"I used to hang around a lot at the Boston Tea Party on Park Street, I sort of lived in there. I used to go for walks in Ashton Court and dream up tricks that I would then go out and do, at restaurants and people's parties in the evenings."
Derren’s live shows have won him two prestigious Olivier Awards – for Something Wicked This Way Comes (2006) and Svengali (2012) and he has received more Olivier nominations and wins than any other one-man show in theatre history.
He has played to sold-out houses across the country every year since 2003 to over 1.6M people. Previous shows, Infamous , (2013, 2014), Miracle (2015, 2016) and Underground (2017, 2018) have also enjoyed critically acclaimed seasons in London’s West End.
He has also written several best-selling books. Most recently The Book of Secrets, where he explores the relationship between adversity and personal growth.
Derren Brown will be performing Showman at the Bristol Hippodrome from May 24-28, there may still be some tickets left if you grab them soon. You can find tickets here.
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