Here are two men. Two entertainers, whatever they choose to call themselves. To men involved with the world of televisual entertainment, but until now, I hadn’t linked them.
The first is Donal MacIntyre. On TV eighteen months or so ago, there was a documentary in which MacIntyre wandered the streets of Brixton for three nights, waving expensive electronic equipment around, trying to get mugged while wearing a hidden camera. On the third night, he managed it, as recounted in this concise and accurate rundown of events.
The second is Derren Brown. On TV tonight, Brown played Russian Roulette at an undisclosed location somewhere in Europe and survived.
Both were obviously controlled situations. If there was any likelihood of MacIntyre actually getting stabbed, or Brown actually blowing his brains out on live (well, time-delayed) TV, then neither programme would have been aired.
But in both there was a necessary element of risk, both perceived and actual. Both looked more dangerous than they actually were, because without that element of danger, it wouldn’t have been good telly. But both involved the man in question actually exposing himself to some small amount of danger, even if we, the gormless public, thought it was vastly more. Managed risk. COntrolled exposure.
In both cases, making the danger seem larger is all a matter of staging and suspense. This explains why Derren spent such a lot of time explaining the choosing of a suitable candidate to load the gun, and so on. All very interesting, and meaning that the actual click-click-click-click-click-BANG (which in itself took less than five minutes) was happily strung out for an hour. Likewise, Donal’s two fruitless nights of trying to get mugged on Coldharbour Lane only served to ratchet up the tension for the inevitable conclusion, which came to pass on the third night - as MacIntyre himself no doubt both hoped and feared. Without a mugging, there was no programme. With one, he was in danger.
So as with Derren Brown, so with Donal MacIntyre: the net result was the same. Both wilfully putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations, with inevitable conclusions - one in the name of psychological mind-trickery, the other in the name of investigative reporting.
And both had an identical effect on me.
Having said all that, did anyone else who watched Derren Brown not shoot himself in the head notice (at the time or, like me, only later) the skillful Auto-Suggestion techniques he employed?
To paraphrase:
“OK, the gun is on the table. In a moment, I WANt you to pick it up and I WANt you to put it under the table. When it’s under the table I WANt you to select ONE chamber and fix that ONE number in your mind. Look at all the other ONEs first, take your time, and when you’re ready I WANt you to settle on the ONE chamber that you WANt. Have you selected ONE number?”“Yes”
“Good”
Emphasis mine. But you’ll never guess which barrel the bullet ended up in…
Incidentally, I was on the Daily Star site looking for their lead print story, exposing Derren Brown for supposedly using blanks in his Russian Roulette stunt the other day. Outrageous! Con!
I was trying to find this in order to compare it to the tabloid stories from the end of last week and early weekend, denouncing Derren for using real bullets. Outrageous! Sick!
What do they want? Do they want real bullets or not? You’d think they’d be relieved to discover they were blanks - if, in fact, they were - since that was the main objection before the event.
It’s reality vs. illusion all over again - and I can’t help wondering if certain tabloids have got the hump because they’re embarrased at being conned. Just a hunch.
