Derren Brown is so bleedin’ spooky that you can’t even take a picture of him without it going all wonky (see left). Thankfully, Derren Brown’s brand of spookiness is based on an honesty about his telling of barefaced lies. Over the festives, Channel 4/E4 showed his brilliant stage show, Something Wicked This Way Comes which is an award-winning show filmed live at the Old Vic, featuring audience participation, shocking stunts and subliminal mind games (naturally).

I really like Derren’s shows… but I can see why some people may froth blood from their eyes at the mere mention of his name (Brown would probably have something to do with such a grotesque image I would hope). He’s quite the showman… telling yarns about magical practises and extreme pain and all that… which I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. How on earth does it travel to the theatre? The good news for me is that it transfers wonderfully.

Derren Brown, as we know, is terribly fond of manipulating your brain and gleefully telling you about it as he does it. The past week-or-so has seen me watch this show twice and it’s amazing what you miss the first time ’round. The climax of the show is getting someone to make ‘random’ choices with Derren having already predicted the ‘future’. Naturally, it’s a big crock because

*******Spoiler ALERT (highlight the text to read)

Derren had been quite blatantly saying "Read Daily Mail" and "Page 14" all the way through his show. Quite how they slipped under my radar the first time around is staggering because I was actually keeping an eye out for anomalies knowing full well he’d try something like this on.

/End Spoiler

Aside from his twisting of my melon, he also lay on broken glass with his face whilst someone stood on the side of his head. Oh, and he managed to have no pulse at the same time (by design). He hammered a nail into his face, getting a member of the public to pull the thing out. He guess that someone once had a crush on someone called Price by looking at something called ‘micro-gives’ (apologies if I’ve remembered that incorrectly). Basically, he did a whole bunch of stuff that made me gawp and wryly grin at his bloody cheek. He never claims that he is blessed with some unearthly power (like that big scouse fibber Derek Acorah) and is generally around to create a great show. If you get the chance to see this, do it. It’ll rewire your brain and entertain your face off in the process. [Mof Gimmers]