It was always going to be difficult for Derren Brown to top his previous stage spectacular, Showman. It has been almost four years since that show arrived at the Apollo in London, but the combination of its emotional pull (Brown shaped it around the lonely death of his father during Covid restrictions) and a gasp-inducing finale that convinced almost the entire audience that they had been hypnotised into forgetting a crucial sequence put it up there with Brown’s very best. While Only Human cannot rival Showman, it’s a thoroughly entertaining, at times mind-warping exploration of how magical we still find the idea of being able to predict the future, five centuries after Nostradamus.
The title indicates that Brown hasn’t abandoned the qualities that made Showman so affecting, its warmth and vulnerability. In his early career, the magician and mentalist could appear thrillingly sinister in how he deployed his armoury of psychological weapons – suggestion, hypnosis, conjuring, misdirection and manipulation – to exert control. A gentler, more empathetic character has emerged over the years, but Brown retains an edge that he uses to suggest there is still a Hannibal Lecter-like figure lurking within that revels in the feeling of tricking us all.
After more than 20 years on stage, Brown, now 55, is so accomplished at commanding an audience that he is able to throw us off balance with ease. He does it here with a startling opening sequence – don’t worry, I’m not going to reveal any spoilers that could ruin the show for anyone else. Visual invention, though, is hugely important to what Brown does both on stage and on television. This is the performer, after all, who orchestrated a zombie apocalypse on TV so that we could watch an unsuspecting, suggestible individual living through the end of everything that he held dear. Here, he creates visually exciting, brilliantly executed set pieces alongside tricks that rely on the simplest of props. He has an underrated gift for comic timing, too.
It all moves quickly and the only longueur is a segment involving audience members that feels too similar to one seen in Showman. But it’s noticeable that Brown’s closest collaborator over 24 years, the actor and magician Andy Nyman – who co-wrote and co-directed that show – is absent from the credits. Only Human is directed solo by another long-time creative accomplice, Andrew O’Connor. Nyman has suggested that their last show was an end-point for him; Only Human, then, may in some senses be a transitional work. It’s not quite as astonishing as Showman, but I still left the theatre thinking, how on earth did he do that?
Derren Brown: Only Human is at the Apollo Theatre, London W1 (derrenbrown.co.uk), until Jan 30