At exactly the same time, BBC1 broadcast the draw, also live. On the stage of the studio from which Brown was broadcasting stood a television, to show the BBC draw. A few feet away, to the left as the viewer saw it, stood a clear plastic stand. On top of the stand were six white, lottery-sized balls. Brown claimed the winning numbers, as predicted by him, had already been written on the balls.
They would, he said, be revealed after the draw had been made. The six main numbers drawn by the lottery machine were, in numerical order, 2, 11, 23, 28, 35, 39. And the numbers written on the balls in Brown's studio were, yes, 2, 11, 23, 28, 35, 39.
Brown had not bought a ticket for the Lottery. That's a pity, because if he really did predict the right numbers he would have been the only person to do so. There were no claimants for the £2.4million jackpot. What followed was a media frenzy. Newspapers, TV and radio programmes and websites have competed to come up with theories to explain the magic and illusion behind Brown's stunt. Other magicians have remained silent, true to their profession's code of secrecy.
Jack Delvin, president of the Magic Circle said: 'Our first rule is we don't discuss secrets of tricks. For the duration of the effect happening, we try to suspend disbelief. So it is no good talking about how it is done.' The Mail, however, is under no such constraints So let's start by looking closely at Brown's broadcast. It lasted just six-and-a-half minutes, and the first thing one notices is that for almost five minutes, Brown never stops talking. He jabbers, non-stop at high speed, the words tumbling out, breathlessly, as if to convey the excitement of the moment.
His hands never stop moving. So the viewers' minds and eyes are constantly being distracted. And distraction is a fundamental principle of magic. Brown starts by hyping up the task he is attempting. He assures the viewers he's not doing anything illegal, and explains that for legal reasons he can show only a couple of minutes of the BBC broadcast. Then he stands behind the six balls and explains that the numbers have already been written upon them in numerical order.
One might think that the best way to predict the numbers would be to announce them, in advance, seconds before they are actually drawn. That way, Brown would make his numbers public and the world would watch, breathless, to see if they were then drawn. But, he says, Camelot, the Lottery company, has told him: 'The BBC has a legal right to announce the Lottery numbers first. Because of that, I can't show you the numbers until just after they've been announced.' How convenient. And how suggestive, also, that the whole basis of Brown's trick is that he has somehow found a way to get the numbers onto the balls in the short space of time between that announcement and his final 'reveal'.
And so it goes on as Brown talks and talks. Just before the numbers are drawn, he produces a large piece of card - white on one side, black on the reverse - on which he will write the numbers that are drawn, using a pen produced from a trouser pocket. Finally, after four minutes and four seconds, the first ball rolls out of the machine. And Derren Brown stops talking. With his back half-turned to the camera as he watches the BBC broadcast, he raises his left hand to his mouth, as if in rapt concentration. And he keeps it there for 45 seconds, during which the draw is made. During that time it looks to a suspicious eye as though he is breathing or mumbling into his hand. Is a microphone in there? Does he have some sort of breath-activated control?
Only after all the balls have been selected does Brown write the numbers down on his card. That done, he walks across to stand behind the six prediction balls, grabs the stand, turns it around and there - hey presto! - are the correct numbers in the same order that he has written on the card.
How did he do it? Well, the five most credible theories go as follows:
1. A split-screen technique would make it seem as though we were looking at one live shot, when in fact, the image of the left half of the screen on which the balls stood had been pre-recorded and patched onto the live action on the right, where Brown was standing.
This would allow the numbers to be applied to the balls without the viewer seeing. The pre-recorded image would be removed as Brown went to stand behind the balls - with the correct numbers written on them - and the whole screen would then go live.
2.The numbers were projected onto the balls using a projector hidden somewhere in the auditorium.
3. The studio was not as simple and bare as it seemed. False walls were used to conceal assistants who printed numbers on the balls as the numbers appeared.
4. Sleight of hand: Derren had hidden a set of balls up his sleeve and somehow managed to get the numbers onto them, and swap them for the balls on the stand without anyone noticing. This might, perhaps, have something to do with why he had his hand to his face during the draw.
5. There was an electronic link between the card on which Brown wrote the numbers and the balls standing several feet away. So as he hand-wrote the numbers on the card, they were somehow printed (see Theory 1) on the balls.
Brown himself has provided a clue in a trailer for a programme tonight, where he will explain his feat, at the end of which he holds up a model snowflake. I suspect Brown is telling us the stunt was a 'snow-job', a term defined as 'an effort to deceive, overwhelm, or persuade with insincere talk and flattery'. I've interviewed Brown and I know he is fascinated by psychological techniques, including so-called Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which uses particular words to imprint thoughts on the human mind.
He told me: 'The reason I do magic is to shake people's belief systems up a bit. It's all about trying to create a psychological journey, because that's what magic is.' I suspect the apparently blathering words that tumbled out of his mouth for the first minutes of the programme were carefully chosen to imprint ideas onto our minds. And I think I can sum up everything he's going to say tonight into three words: 'You've been had.'
Derren Brown may not call himself a magician, he may insist he doesn't do tricks, and that his ability to predict the winning Lottery numbers is down to nothing but a combination of mind-blowing calculation and genuine psychic skill. But, make no mistake, he is one of us. Perhaps you watched him on Wednesday night, accepting everything you saw as truth. Perhaps you'll watch again tonight expecting to hear his formula for picking the right numbers every time. But I have been in this business for 60 years, and I don't see things the way you do.
What I saw was a trick, pulled off with aplomb, and it took me just a moment to think of two -and-a-half decent ways to get it done. But just as I would never dream of telling an audience my secrets, I would never tell Derren's either. I can't know for sure which of the myriad methods he might have used, so there is no point speculating. But what I can say with certainty is that, what he did on Wednesday night, magicians have been doing for ever - for as long as psychics, mind-readers and 'mentalists' like Derren have been claiming to have special powers.
Mentalism - the form of magic that has become his stock-in-trade - is just one part of the magician's art. I have book upon book on ways to 'predict the future', and I have used them to magical effect in the past, predicting everything from newspaper headlines to bingo numbers. Using certain methods (which I have no intention of divulging) it's possible to predict pretty much anything you like. Two weeks after the National Lottery was first aired on the BBC, I went to the programme planning department and said: 'Let's do a Lottery prediction.'
The answer was 'no', and the reason was understandable: The BBC, which had only just won the licence to present it, couldn't risk the public thinking that the results had been fixed or tampered with. A trick performed well should convince an audience that we can really do what we claim. But anyone with half a brain knows that the number of psychics and performers with Derren's apparent talent for foresight who have actually won the Lottery or picked the Grand National winner tells you all you need to know about their real capabilities.
I could teach you as much as anyone knows about 'predicting the future'. I know all the tricks and you could learn them in about three days flat. But I guarantee at the end of it you would be no closer to hitting the jackpot. It's an aside, but did you know that if you buy a Lottery ticket on Monday morning for the following Saturday's draw, you have more chance of dying that week than collecting the top prize? I guarantee you that even Derren Brown faces those same odds. The job of a magician is to make dreams a reality. We are actors playing the role of a man who can do anything. The best tricks in the world begin with the thought: What do I wish I was able to do?
We wish we could pluck money out of thin air and make beautiful girls appear with a click of fingers. We wish we could fly, disappear and, perhaps above all, predict the Lottery results. Magic makes all those things appear possible. But appearances, of course, are deceptive. Derren is a master of deception. He pretended to be nervous when, in fact, the result of the draw had no bearing on whether his trick would work. I love to be deceived - we all do - which is why magicians should never reveal their methods.
We are just entertainers, and without mystery, our art is nothing. I hope he doesn't reveal his method tonight, but I can't believe that he will. Derren, like all magicians, deals in lies and half-truths. Although it is possible to execute 'future-prediction' tricks without the aid of technology, there's no doubt in my mind that, to present it in the way he did, he used some technological trickery on this occasion - and to admit that would spoil the fun. So, I hope when he is asked how it was done, he answers with just two words: 'Absolutely brilliantly.'
Brown had not bought a ticket for the Lottery. That's a pity, because if he really did predict the right numbers he would have been the only person to do so. There were no claimants for the £2.4million jackpot. What followed was a media frenzy. Newspapers, TV and radio programmes and websites have competed to come up with theories to explain the magic and illusion behind Brown's stunt. Other magicians have remained silent, true to their profession's code of secrecy.
Jack Delvin, president of the Magic Circle said: 'Our first rule is we don't discuss secrets of tricks. For the duration of the effect happening, we try to suspend disbelief. So it is no good talking about how it is done.' The Mail, however, is under no such constraints So let's start by looking closely at Brown's broadcast. It lasted just six-and-a-half minutes, and the first thing one notices is that for almost five minutes, Brown never stops talking. He jabbers, non-stop at high speed, the words tumbling out, breathlessly, as if to convey the excitement of the moment.
His hands never stop moving. So the viewers' minds and eyes are constantly being distracted. And distraction is a fundamental principle of magic. Brown starts by hyping up the task he is attempting. He assures the viewers he's not doing anything illegal, and explains that for legal reasons he can show only a couple of minutes of the BBC broadcast. Then he stands behind the six balls and explains that the numbers have already been written upon them in numerical order.
One might think that the best way to predict the numbers would be to announce them, in advance, seconds before they are actually drawn. That way, Brown would make his numbers public and the world would watch, breathless, to see if they were then drawn. But, he says, Camelot, the Lottery company, has told him: 'The BBC has a legal right to announce the Lottery numbers first. Because of that, I can't show you the numbers until just after they've been announced.' How convenient. And how suggestive, also, that the whole basis of Brown's trick is that he has somehow found a way to get the numbers onto the balls in the short space of time between that announcement and his final 'reveal'.
And so it goes on as Brown talks and talks. Just before the numbers are drawn, he produces a large piece of card - white on one side, black on the reverse - on which he will write the numbers that are drawn, using a pen produced from a trouser pocket. Finally, after four minutes and four seconds, the first ball rolls out of the machine. And Derren Brown stops talking. With his back half-turned to the camera as he watches the BBC broadcast, he raises his left hand to his mouth, as if in rapt concentration. And he keeps it there for 45 seconds, during which the draw is made. During that time it looks to a suspicious eye as though he is breathing or mumbling into his hand. Is a microphone in there? Does he have some sort of breath-activated control?
Only after all the balls have been selected does Brown write the numbers down on his card. That done, he walks across to stand behind the six prediction balls, grabs the stand, turns it around and there - hey presto! - are the correct numbers in the same order that he has written on the card.
How did he do it? Well, the five most credible theories go as follows:
1. A split-screen technique would make it seem as though we were looking at one live shot, when in fact, the image of the left half of the screen on which the balls stood had been pre-recorded and patched onto the live action on the right, where Brown was standing.
This would allow the numbers to be applied to the balls without the viewer seeing. The pre-recorded image would be removed as Brown went to stand behind the balls - with the correct numbers written on them - and the whole screen would then go live.
2.The numbers were projected onto the balls using a projector hidden somewhere in the auditorium.
3. The studio was not as simple and bare as it seemed. False walls were used to conceal assistants who printed numbers on the balls as the numbers appeared.
4. Sleight of hand: Derren had hidden a set of balls up his sleeve and somehow managed to get the numbers onto them, and swap them for the balls on the stand without anyone noticing. This might, perhaps, have something to do with why he had his hand to his face during the draw.
5. There was an electronic link between the card on which Brown wrote the numbers and the balls standing several feet away. So as he hand-wrote the numbers on the card, they were somehow printed (see Theory 1) on the balls.
Brown himself has provided a clue in a trailer for a programme tonight, where he will explain his feat, at the end of which he holds up a model snowflake. I suspect Brown is telling us the stunt was a 'snow-job', a term defined as 'an effort to deceive, overwhelm, or persuade with insincere talk and flattery'. I've interviewed Brown and I know he is fascinated by psychological techniques, including so-called Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which uses particular words to imprint thoughts on the human mind.
He told me: 'The reason I do magic is to shake people's belief systems up a bit. It's all about trying to create a psychological journey, because that's what magic is.' I suspect the apparently blathering words that tumbled out of his mouth for the first minutes of the programme were carefully chosen to imprint ideas onto our minds. And I think I can sum up everything he's going to say tonight into three words: 'You've been had.'
Derren Brown may not call himself a magician, he may insist he doesn't do tricks, and that his ability to predict the winning Lottery numbers is down to nothing but a combination of mind-blowing calculation and genuine psychic skill. But, make no mistake, he is one of us. Perhaps you watched him on Wednesday night, accepting everything you saw as truth. Perhaps you'll watch again tonight expecting to hear his formula for picking the right numbers every time. But I have been in this business for 60 years, and I don't see things the way you do.
What I saw was a trick, pulled off with aplomb, and it took me just a moment to think of two -and-a-half decent ways to get it done. But just as I would never dream of telling an audience my secrets, I would never tell Derren's either. I can't know for sure which of the myriad methods he might have used, so there is no point speculating. But what I can say with certainty is that, what he did on Wednesday night, magicians have been doing for ever - for as long as psychics, mind-readers and 'mentalists' like Derren have been claiming to have special powers.
Mentalism - the form of magic that has become his stock-in-trade - is just one part of the magician's art. I have book upon book on ways to 'predict the future', and I have used them to magical effect in the past, predicting everything from newspaper headlines to bingo numbers. Using certain methods (which I have no intention of divulging) it's possible to predict pretty much anything you like. Two weeks after the National Lottery was first aired on the BBC, I went to the programme planning department and said: 'Let's do a Lottery prediction.'
The answer was 'no', and the reason was understandable: The BBC, which had only just won the licence to present it, couldn't risk the public thinking that the results had been fixed or tampered with. A trick performed well should convince an audience that we can really do what we claim. But anyone with half a brain knows that the number of psychics and performers with Derren's apparent talent for foresight who have actually won the Lottery or picked the Grand National winner tells you all you need to know about their real capabilities.
I could teach you as much as anyone knows about 'predicting the future'. I know all the tricks and you could learn them in about three days flat. But I guarantee at the end of it you would be no closer to hitting the jackpot. It's an aside, but did you know that if you buy a Lottery ticket on Monday morning for the following Saturday's draw, you have more chance of dying that week than collecting the top prize? I guarantee you that even Derren Brown faces those same odds. The job of a magician is to make dreams a reality. We are actors playing the role of a man who can do anything. The best tricks in the world begin with the thought: What do I wish I was able to do?
We wish we could pluck money out of thin air and make beautiful girls appear with a click of fingers. We wish we could fly, disappear and, perhaps above all, predict the Lottery results. Magic makes all those things appear possible. But appearances, of course, are deceptive. Derren is a master of deception. He pretended to be nervous when, in fact, the result of the draw had no bearing on whether his trick would work. I love to be deceived - we all do - which is why magicians should never reveal their methods.
We are just entertainers, and without mystery, our art is nothing. I hope he doesn't reveal his method tonight, but I can't believe that he will. Derren, like all magicians, deals in lies and half-truths. Although it is possible to execute 'future-prediction' tricks without the aid of technology, there's no doubt in my mind that, to present it in the way he did, he used some technological trickery on this occasion - and to admit that would spoil the fun. So, I hope when he is asked how it was done, he answers with just two words: 'Absolutely brilliantly.'
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