Sunday, March 27, 2011

Derren Brown's Svengali Hand-Stamp -- What's that all about?

A couple of Svengali attendees have posted pictures of their hand stamps. For example, see this one: Hand Stamp, which includes the caption "9889: Derren Brown Svengali - you have to be there to understand!"

What is the hand stamp all about? It's part of a trick, obviously. Does Derren select volunteers based on the number stamped on their hand? Or is something else going on here?

And here's another photograph of the stage, taken at the March 24 Liverpool show, apparently: Svengali Stage. The flickr caption calls this the "opening stage set," implying that the stage looks different later in the show.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Everyone who wished to participate in the show were given the option of having their hand stamped. It gave us some confusion and got us talking, as every member of my familys stamp read 9889 when the back of the hand was upright facing us, yet mine read 6886 (the lady stamped it the wrong way)

We thought this may have been to seperate people as part of the show, or to see if we interpritate it as 6 being the devil or as a 9 kind of thing.

The show was amazing tho. I dont wish to say much more as it will spoil it, and Derren did say he didnt wish for people to discuss it!! x

Unknown said...

Also, forgot to add, the stage didnt change later on in the show. During the interval a curtain was placed to cover the background, then raised to reveal the same stage set.

William_Tapscott said...

Aimee, thanks for the clarification! In the past Derren has kept his stage set-up simple, so it sounds like he has done that again.

Lady Claire said...

I had no choice in the matter re the stamp. I've been twice and was stamped first on the left hand, then on the right. Neither time was I given the option to say no. In fact the second occasion I got the impression that the lady wouldn't have let me & my friend in UNLESS we'd been stamped! But maybe that was just Brighton (which were, after all, preview shows).

William_Tapscott said...

You went twice, though -- it must be good! Was the show pretty well identical the second time, or is there some variety?

Lady Claire said...

Well for me there was a lot of variety cos I went to previews. Derren actually took out something I had the privilege of seeing on the opening night.
Whilst the script maybe the same, the variety is in the people he uses and what they have to say etc. I found Svengali much better in that respect than Enigma (which I saw 5 times live).

Unknown said...

I went to see Derren in Oxford last night. We were emailed beforehand advising us to get there early as all audience members were required to have their hands stamps - however it didn't happen! No one had their hand stamped! I'm intrigued as to what it was for!

justme said...

We had our hands stamped on the way out for the interval, not a number, just an eyeball - thought it was a pass-out check.

William_Tapscott said...

So it sounds like Derren abandoned the 9889 hand stamp after the 2011 season. I wonder why?