Behind The Trick: Derren Debrief / Off Campus has a a great soundtrack…

0:00There's an episode. Did it deliver for you? Yeah, I think you clearly really like Darren. You love Darren. You bought him some shoes.

0:10Ben Hanlin: Oh, I need to talk. Don't tell people that. Hello, this is a different episode of What's the Trick? Because this is a bit of a behind the scenes. Maybe we're calling it behind the trick. We'll see. Where I am joined by my podcast editor. And it happens to also be my wife, Briony. Say hello, Bryony. Hello. The point of this episode, if we normally talk about when Bryony edits an episode, the first thing I do is go, what did you think? What were your best bits? And we thought, instead of just talking about it, let's talk to you lot about it. And I haven't heard what Bryony thought of the Darren Brown episode.

0:44Ben Hanlin: So we're going to debrief on that. Other things we're also going to talk about in this episode is I've tasked Bryony with telling us about some of her favorite episodes gone by. And we're going to recap on a few of them. Also a culture vulture. Robrini is going to tell us what she's been up to this week from a film, TV point of view. So we're going to cover lots of things. And it's just going to be a quick chat. And it's a bit of a test. So let's see how we go. All right. Let's get into it. Let's talk about Derren. So you've just listened to it. And what bits did you like? The woman. The 40-year-old woman.

1:17Go on. Who, was she like paralyzed on that one side of her body? Yeah. And then she went to Derren's show and then spoke to Derren. And he did his Derriny thing.

1:28Ben Hanlin: Yeah. And then she could move her arm. Why did you like that bit? It's just weird, isn't it? So I still don't get it. But she hasn't been able to move her arm since she was like three. And then she's gone to Derriny's show to have the thought somebody else might have been able to step in before Derriny. But then he does other things in his show. And we've got to be careful what we can say. But when he goes up to people and just says sleep and they just drop to the floor. And they're just on the floor. I didn't tell you this, did I? So our neighbour, two doors down, they went to the show and the person stood next to her.

2:03Ben Hanlin: He said, sleep, and he dropped to the floor and he was out for about 20 minutes. And apparently when he came up, she said to him, what was that like? And he's like, I've got no recollection. No, I don't believe it. What do you mean? I just don't believe that's true. You think everybody's lying? No, I don't think they're lying. I just think they must have a sense of awareness. It's like not possible for someone to make you just black out like that. that doesn't work. It's not, that's not science. It doesn't exist. It's no offence to Darren, but I'm like, there must be something going on. They must, they must have some awareness during that time.

2:34Ben Hanlin: And that's what people say is they don't. I know, but I don't believe them. Jack, you listen to it. Anything that stood out for you? Sorry. I'm going to doubling back onto what Brian said earlier about where he explains the hypnosis and when he says sleep. Yeah. Because you were saying that in that moment, Brian, you went, oh, that's the first time you've been shocked for a while. like you've been you've lived with a magician 20 years nothing's going to shock you but that moment's like how did he do that and when he's explaining he's like it's all in his identifying of like how people are coming onto the stage making a split second decision and the fact it's a simple handshake in the way he does it to break a moment definitely go and listen to that section if you haven't already but that bit really stood out to me it intrigues me and i'm not a magic fan personally but i was like whoa that's deep it is fascinating i used to do a lot of dancing and somebody had hypnosis to make them do the splits no way they did yeah that they did yeah i said they went to hypnosis so they like couldn't feel the pain doing the splits and eventually they could do the splits and i was like surely that's just repetition and someone's charged a lot of money for it very cynical oh you all right this is my this is who i live with um what happened to a magician for 20 years as an episode did it deliver for you yeah I think you clearly really like Darren.

3:54So you love Darren. You bought him some shoes.

3:58Ben Hanlin: Oh, don't tell people that. You don't know this, Jack. So Jack's our producer that's off camera. You can say hello, Jack. Hello. Jack also helps produce. He does a lot of the video stuff as well. So Jack, we've not told you. Go on then. Go on. No, so Darren during the recording said that he really liked Ben's shoes, which I picked, by the way. And then afterwards, Ben said to me, oh, where did she get those shoes from? They're from ASOS. If they want, they could sponsor me, Ben. They could. Look at you. You're five minutes in and you're getting commercial already. And you said, oh, well, let's get Darren a pair of those shoes.

4:36And I was like, oh, my God. Okay, that's a bit weird. Anyway, so look for the shoes. The shoes are sold out. So you ended up buying them from some other website, actually, because ASOS hadn't restocked their shoe. And then I had to call where he was staying, which I might be asking.

4:49Ben Hanlin: No, don't say anything. The mysterious hotel. And make sure that they were there and ready for when the shoes arrived. I have to call them in this conversation like, hello, I'm a random lady calling, asking, like, we've got some shoes arriving, like some crazy fun for Derren Brown. Are you going to be around? They're brown shoes. Now what come I, oh, God, I've bought brown shoes for Derren Brown, like some weird thing. The way you say that does make me sound a bit mental. But in context, about two or three, I think he was Derren Browning me, about two or three times during the interview he's like oh nice shoes i love these they're like adidas brown sambas things and at the end i think he basically almost went i love these shoes you should buy me some i know um and i and i also i didn't i hope darren's not listening to this when i when we looked at them on asos they're about 40 quid i was like okay that's fine i can do that because it's sold out on asos i ended up paying about 90 quid for the because i'd already promised him at this point does that make me sound a bit metaphor i'm gonna be honest yes people go to tell Stephen Bloody Bartlett who's been next are they going to be like oh they sent Jem's shoes don't mean he bought me a box of chocolates you don't do any of that but you are coming on our pod don't expect just send me your shoes send me your shoes I like some weird I don't know who's got enough there giving me your only phone to count okay so you liked what other bits you liked from the episode the other one that I wrote down that he says like every day he like just really likes what he does.

6:18Do what you like. Do what you're good at and what you like.

6:21Ben Hanlin: I think that was one of the things I thought about. He really said that. Do some... I said, because I was not in two minds to ask him, why do you still do it? But basically, what I did say, you don't need the money. You don't need the accolades. And his answer was that it's good to do things in life you're good at. And I didn't expect that answer. I thought it was quite nice. Yeah, I think that was it, wasn't it? Yeah. So that was Darren. I also asked you, I said, if we're going to do this little chat, Bri. Yes. You've listened to every single one of the pods because you've been to see it. What have been your top three episodes so far?

6:53Well, I don't know if this is because it's recent, but I put Warwick's episode down. Warwick Brownlow Pike? Yes.

6:59Ben Hanlin: The puppeteer who wanted to be a puppeteer and he's now in The Muppets. And is now in The Muppets and plays Dodge. And probably similar to Darren saying, like, he just likes what he does. Like, he is somebody that, from the age of two, who has like woken up and every day just wants to be a puppeteer. Imagine that just at age two, like you, age two, you know what you're doing. Fine, done, tick. Yeah. And it's just that like 100 % passion of that's what I want to do. That's what I'm going to keep doing. Yeah. And I made it happen. And had like such a lovely, well, I don't, you know, I don't know how lovely his parents were, but you know, it just seems to have had a family that supported him to do that.

7:37And it's just quite a nice story. Yeah. And he speaks really well. He did speak really well.

7:42Ben Hanlin: No, he's really good. He's just, it's sometimes quite nice. And I say this politely, and I consider myself a magic geek, but to see people who are like geeks in their own world, who obsess over this tiny niche thing, and they've made it a career, which has been lovely. Cool. So you liked Warwick? Yeah, so I liked that episode. Yeah. Who else did I put down? I put Dom Jolly, just because it was really funny. He's just funny. And obviously we grew up watching Trigger Happy. But just to go back over those and some of the clips that obviously we put together for the socials, I'll really feel it. I mean, so since then, actually, since we recorded that, I've kind of become friends with Dom Lillow.

8:24Ben Hanlin: We message and I did it. So he sent him some shoes.

8:32He's got big feet, they'd be much more expensive.

8:36Ben Hanlin: I'll ask him, hey Dom, what shoes do you want? and he got a speakeasy thing he does a night in Cheltenham which is really fun so you can go to but digging through all that stuff what really I loved about his episode is when he described those stunts all those pranks they're still funny there's one he says about he says we we waited up at four in the morning dressed as cats and when the milkman was on his milk float and went to deliver milk we raided the milk float and ran off with milk and just describing that it's still funny it's very funny it was funny bones I think with all of the guests, though, like every single guest, you can kind of see there is obviously an element in luck of like when they made it.

9:16But with every single one, he was this happy, like make. Yes, OK, he wanted to do it for money, but happy, like making the content. That's what he wanted to do. And he's probably ended up doing something else at some point that he's probably gone on. And he's done his books and things like that. But just like they just want to do the rinse, repeat, carry on. They enjoy doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And then the third one was Holt Kitchen.

9:37Ben Hanlin: the film reviewers yeah again they were just two friends that decided to have a go at this thing they really enjoyed doing it's a passion they were really passionate about what they did and they actually bounced off each other quite well didn't they and to hear about that thing in Indiana Indiana Jones yes they all got obviously ill which is why they never didn't fight scene that episode if you've not listened to it is full of just film trivia so the two guys are film again film viewers amazing Amazing. And they give loads of recommendations, loads of backstories. So if you're into films, go and check out the Pulp Kitchen episode.

10:13Ben Hanlin: Culture Vulture. So obviously, if you're a regular listener, you know, I ask every guest, Culture Vulture, what's the thing you've been watching, doing, seeing that you've loved recently? And I said to Bryony, before we hit record, I said, oh, I'm going to ask you that question. So, Bry, what have you been watching, seeing, doing recently? Do you want the honest answer? Yeah. off campus obviously Jack Nard is here do you know this show Jack? I don't know this show but every girl that I've spoken to my girlfriend or my best friend's partners they're all going off campus this off campus that and then suddenly my TikTok is don't go on Instagram now honestly still don't understand what it's about because I didn't get that deep but why don't you explain this amazing incredible piece of fiction here cynical but it's like literally the biggest tv show on probably on streaming okay platforms well it's just it's it's based on a book it's based on a book that's called a deal it's like a series of books some music is like the sound the soundtrack is really good that's what i'm in it for really yeah that's why your instagram feed is john other ones similar yeah um but it's basically oh it's basically people at college and it's like a love story that features some rather decent looking hockey players how many times have you watched it briny no i've watched it once all the way through and then and i have i have watched a little bit of after this it's just really good background watching like this is absolutely every time i come home no that's not true every time you come home okay no i've watched the series once all the way through and then there might have been times where i've forgotten what's happened at the end of the episode say because it's been late or maybe I had a glass of wine.

11:59So then pre-watch the end of the episode and then gone to the next.

12:02Ben Hanlin: There's been one episode where there's a stupid party and a sleepover. Not a stupid party. And I swear I've watched it three times. It's about you. I'm like, how many times are you putting this thing on? There's a reason why it's popular. It's very well done. It's not very well done. It is very well done. So that's what's been going on in our house over the last few weeks. I have also watched other stuff that's been half decent. Fine. Okay. So that has been um what we said what we what should we call this episode should we call it the uh behind the trick do we like this title or not i don't know i think i want something a bit catchy on that right okay in that case if you're listening uh we will work on the name of this whatever this show is in the next few weeks but you can let us know and you could suggest a good title for what this is you don't want me to give my suggestions no you got suggestions go on sure i've put like the trick chat the trick chat sounds a bit like tick tap now trick chat or trick talks trick talks like TED talks it's a bit like TED talks or just like what's the trick like dot dot so it's just the name of the pod again like talk or chat at the end what's the chat you say that You should probably do this brainstorming off it Maybe What is it with my eyes?

13:29Ben Hanlin: Were there any of them? Truthfully, no Well, Claude agreed with me Okay I liked the one that was similar to Ted Talk Because I had a bit of a logic But I think behind the trick is still

13:44Ben Hanlin: Let's park that for another day You could suggest it We'll keep working on that But that has been I think we'll just keep it there Well, I've got four minutes to pick up the kids, so. But we will be back next week for another debrief and another episode of... Trip chat! Wouldn't it not. All right, see you next week.