Trabia Garden

Due to my lack of Internet access, you have been spared much of my rambling as I pass through the Massive Derren Brown Obsession Phase (with the exception of strangeumbrella, who has been the unfortunate recipient of all my 'HOW DOES HE DO THAT?' text messages), and instead my housemates have been the ones to suffer all my excited handwaving and 'WATCH THIS' and occasional unsuccessful attempts to hypnotise them.

This is obviously not fair, and so I have grabbed a bit of spare Internet floating around in order to inflict some of my pent-up rambling upon you. (We hope to get the Internet set up fairly soon, and then I will no longer be forced to guiltily leech off unsecured wireless networks or prostitute myself in dark alleyways for half a minute on somebody's Internet phone.*)

I now possess the first series of Trick of the Mind (time elapsed between my watching Derren Brown on television for the first time and the purchase of my first Derren Brown DVD: two days. I'm doomed). On this DVD is a little behind-the-scenes featurette, and as it begins a car draws up and the door opens and... what's that echoey singing? That sounds like Derren Brown himself, and he's singing... is he singing...?


it's Derren Brown
it's Derren Brown
it's Derren Brown
it's Derren Brown
he's very kind
he'll read your mind
even if you're blind
your thoughts he'll find

Those of you who know me will know that, sexy asphyxiation aside, enormous dorkishness is probably the fastest way to my heart, and singing a ridiculous song about oneself is going to hit it like a train. OH, DERREN.

Other things I love about this DVD:

- The invisibility effect (low-quality but watchable. Sorry; I'd try to find better-quality clips, but I'm trying not to load too much, just in case the broadband I'm borrowing has a download limit. I am a gentleman thief. OBVIOUSLY YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO BUY THE DVD). The poor student's reactions are wonderful (the expressions! the lip-licking! the nervous laughter!), and Derren is just having so much fun terrifying him out of his wits. Evil fun.

- The voodoo trick, in which Derren is not frightening the girl nearly as much as he is frightening me. Seriously, he is probably at his most terrifying here. He is also, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, at his most sexy.

- How excited he is when something goes well. He is adorable! And terrifying! And attractive! And he seems like such a nice person, when he's not, er, paralysing people or making them think they're about to die. STOP BEING SO CONFUSING, DERREN BROWN.

- The commentary! (If it doesn't work when you select it on the 'Setup' page, just get VLC Media Player and change the audio track on the 'Audio' menu.) Sometimes it is genuinely good and entertaining, such as in the commentary for the first episode, when Derren and Andy discuss the adoring twinkle in Derren's eye when he's speaking to Stephen Fry. Sometimes Derren sings along with the 'doodeedoodeedoodeedoodee' of the theme tune, which fills me with absurd levels of glee. Sometimes I just love it because it's so ridiculously bad, such as when the series producer is too absorbed in reading the graffiti on the soundroom lamp to say anything, or when Derren brings his younger brother Dominic on to do a commentary and it quickly becomes apparent that Dominic knows nothing about the series:


( Cut for a slightly lengthy quote. )


SO RUBBISH. I LOVE IT. And then Derren is forced to apologise for the rubbishness of the commentary. Eventually, after another long silence, he resorts to, 'Got any shopping to do on the way home?'

Ooh, wait: there is a part of the Derren-and-Dominic commentary that I love on a genuine level. Hang on whilst I transcribe it.


(Derren, on screen, is explaining to the teacher how he manipulated her into thinking of a teddy bear.)
Dominic: Do you worry that in situations like this you might seem a bit smarmy, where you're explaining the stupidity of the individual to them?
Derren: I - I have - a lot of people would, I think; I think what I'm blessed with is an ability never to appear smug.
Dominic: That's true.
Derren: And despite how - how clever I'm making myself appear with these routines, you just can't help loving me for it as a viewer.
(laughter)
Derren: (audibly grinning) 'Yes, he is cleverer than us, but we really respect him for that!' That's what people think.


Oh, Derren. And although he's obviously joking, he is also - in my case, at least - entirely correct.


* I have only actually been doing one of these.