Very few people have gained as much popularity as Derren Brown has in the field of illusionism and magic. To say that he is a multifaceted personality would be an understatement. He is a magician, psychological illusionist, painter, and mentalist. More than anything else, his stage shows and TV shows made him more popular than ever.

The University of Bristol was the starting point for Derren as far as his shows are concerned. He came up with his stage name Derren V. Brown and started doing stage hypnosis shows at the university. Soon he became popular with these stage shows and then came the big break. Channel 4, impressed by Derren’s popularity, asked him to do a pilot for the TV series Mind Control. The rest, as they say, is history.

Derren Brown: Mind Control became a hit show and the viewers were mesmerized by Derren’s mind reading skills. Derren claimed that he used a combination of magic, psychology, suggestion, and misdirection, and showmanship to predict accurately what people were thinking.

October 5, 2003 was a historic day for both Derren and Channel 4. He performed Russian roulette on TV, almost live. One viewer was chosen from the tens of thousands of applicants and he was part of the show along with Derren. The show was a hit. However, it faced criticisms from the British police as they were wary of consequences like copycat acts. Then it was revealed that the show did not involve any live ammunition and the participants were not at risk during the filming of the show.

Derren did his next project for Channel 4 on 31st May, 2004. It was a live séance in which he involved students from Roehampton University. To keep the audience glued to the TV, Derren also involved them with interactive activities. A photograph of 12 people who committed suicide in that hall was shown to everyone and they were asked to identity one of the members of the group that committed suicide. Though it appeared like a live show, it was actually carefully preplanned and the outcomes were predetermined by Derren. Nevertheless, the show was a success again.

On Jan 07, 2005, Derren went to the United States and did a show called Messiah. In this show, he demonstrated his power to five experts from the fields of Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories, and contacting the dead. Derren convinced all the five experts that he had powers in those fields. In fact, those experts were convinced to such an extent that they openly endorsed Derren as a practitioner.

In his next series, Derren created a highly controversial video gamed called the Waking Dead and claimed that it was capable of putting roughly 1/3rd of the players into catatonic trance. It was hugely popular and raised enormous controversy.

In 2005, he also did two important shows called The Gathering and The Heist, both of which were super successful. The former involved group hypnosis, in which Derren made everyone forget everything about the show once it was over. The latter involved a robbery, in which the participants were convinced to rob a van of their own accord, without any guilt or fear. Both these shows were hugely famous. Derren then toured the UK and did his famous show Something Wicked This Way Comes. The tour was a success. 2007 was an eventful year for Derren. He came up with Trick or Treat, the hugely famous TV series on Channel 4, a live stage show called Mind Reader - An Evening of Wonders, and another TV series called Mind Control with Derren Brown on Sci Fi Channel. Richard Dawkins also interviewed him for his documentary called The Enemies of Reason.

In 2008, Derren came up with a famous Channel 4 special called The System, in which he claimed to predict the outcome of horse races accurately. It was actually based on confirmation bias and later Derren revealed that there was nothing magical about the show.

The journey that started in 1996 hasn’t stopped yet as he still continues to do shows. Derren, as they say, is an enigma.

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