The 'spoiler' seems to be that the show was for the most part quite crappy.

I think if someone went to the show expecting it to be mostly crappy, they would be pleasantly surprised.

I saw the show on Tuesday in Birmingham and although I found it very entertaining I have to mostly agree with the original reviewer.

Saw this on Tuesday so glad I never read this post beforehand. Shame to see people out there spoiling it for everyone else

I saw the show in Birmingham last night. Clearly many of the niggles described by the OP have been ironed out (eg getting audience members up on stage is now done by inviting anyone who has an interest in spiritualism to come up). Much of the show was very well done, some of it was quite simple conjouring, and there was a little too much "let me give you an insight into me as a person" for my liking. I can see why DB would want to break the mould of the "I am a mysterious mind reader with amazing skills" and build upon the "I am an honest guy who has learnt some amazing tricks" but I enjoyed his previous shows more. Having said that the finale was a brilliant piece of showmanship and left me spending a lot of time thinking "obviously that was an adaptation of so and so, but how did he......"

To me that is the greatest mystery---Derren should be performing here (the US) and should be a huge star here

He's tried, he would never fly here. For many reasons.

Derren's show was on the SyFy channel for a while way back. He also has done some bits in Los Angeles that have aired on his UK shows and I've heard he may be doing his live show in New York. Perhaps he is too high brow to be a huge star in the USA. Remember the States have hundreds of millions of people more than the UK which I think might mean it takes a wider net to capture the public. Whatever it is, probably he would have a better chance doing a slightly Americanized Derren instead of a carbon copy of his UK work.

Very nice review, thank you!

I saw Infamous this week! I feel Derren has returned to form with the help of Andy Nyman!

Can you name some of them?

Too subtle......

Sure, American audiences are completely different than his typical audience, this combined with many factors such as his pompousity, character, perceived intelligence and inconsistencies to name just a few. I will likely be meeting Derren and some of his people later this year and will be happy to consult them if they are interested as they know.

This also is not a jab towards Derren, as this is also true for most performers trying to make the transition to becoming established and carry over their success into America. The concern is if they are interested in doing what it may take to do so.

I agree that the show is a step away from the 'turn of the century golden age' presentation, it's a definite don't miss though as it was truly excellent and as always the production values and presentation / performance is stunning.
There can't be many better performers on the stage in the world.

I loved the theme of the teenage Derren being a bit of a misfit as he wasn't one of the cool kids - to my shame I can imagine myself being the schoolboy that would have called people a dick if they didn't play football - I took my 12 year old son to the show, who hates football etc and the messages in the show were almost tailor made for him. We waited around afterwards and he got to have his programme signed, so it topped a brilliant evening.

Go and see it - it's worth every penny.

Shame that this thread exists with so many spoilers after Derren has specifically asked for its content not to be shared.

I saw the show in London a week or so ago and thought it was great - enjoyed it much more than Svengali which I saw last year (or perhaps the year before??). Good t have Nyman back.

I saw the show just over a week ago, and I tend to agree with the sentiments of the OP. Some technical changes were made, but the show still seemed to work as a series of disjointed tricks, which was my main disappointment with it. Having said that, the way it was staged was really good and I enjoyed seeing Derren Brown perform. Curiously, the term "spazbrain" reported in the OP was replaced with the slightly more PC "dickbrain" for the performance I saw.

My 3 reasons to see it:
- It's Derren Brown!
- Loads of audience participation including the chance to be part of an on-stage audience, plus the backdrop and lighting etc, make it an event that you feel part of rather than something that you might as well have watched on TV (which can be my thought after going to some theatre productions (yeah, I know!))
- my wife thought it was excellent, and she's always right!

My 3 gripes about the show:
- None of the 'coming out' references, gay jokes or 'power to the outsider' speeches really gave any coherence to the show. A little of this stuff may have served the getting-to-know-the-performer rapport-building side of the act, but it was done to the extent of seeming obsessive/ preachy. Perhaps he did it as a form of self-therapy.
- There was lots of moaning about homeopathy, fake mediums and fake surgery in the Phillipines, which just seemed to be about promoting his own belief system. No acknowledgement was made of the current limits of science, so the claim "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" was used to imply that if you can't prove it right now then it must be fake. He was very open about performing stuff related to these issues as tricks and they played very well, so to me this is a strong enough statement. However, he just couldn't seem to stop preaching about this stuff as he was doing it, which detracted from what he was doing in my opinion. Perhaps his habits as an evangelist have never gone away. It was a shame, because I do generally agree with his beliefs on these issues.
- there was all this buzz about Andy Nyman being on the creative team, but I failed to see why he needed any creative team to put together a bunch of tricks that he has broadly shown on TV before and then talk about himself and his beliefs in between them. I was hoping that he would have something innovative in there, but was disappointed. Some of the showmanship even seemed a little bit random, which I would have thought could have been ironed out by now.

Each effect was strong and played well. This was Derren Brown doing the material that has made him famous and he performed really well throughout. The group that I was with (my non-magician friends) all really enjoyed the whole thing.

Now that the video has been aired, I'm curious what everyone thinks. Surely the show is more polished now than it was when these early reviews were written. I'm definitely glad I didn't see this thread before watching the show.

There are a number of things in the comments that clearly were ironed out by the time filming started. Including comments about what the title means. I guess it also helps demonstrate also that the stuff he memorized and the various reveals aren't the same numbers and information presented at each show. The book test may be common, but knowing that he does this one so often and always has a different result is fascinating. There still are a few "plot holes" but given that he is demonstrating how easy it is to fake psychic effects, they make sense.

He has spoken about name calling when he was in school before. That he changes the actual nickname for better effect in the show is irrelevant. Although I find it funny that in the UK, calling someone a spaz is considered worse than dick. But I'm just being a dickspaz.

It definitely was more introspective than anything he's done before. And I love his old psychic lady imitation. His use of language is clever and mischevious as always.

Gonna watch it again tonight.

His shows every time looks great like his PS work

Must admit, not his best.