Given its topicality, I thought some of you might enjoy the sound of this.
While we wait for the real thing, it seems someone called Steven has been treated to a rehearsal of a version of the apocalypse, sci fi-style, courtesy of Derren Brown, the illusionist and magician.
Radio Times said:
[...] Take Steven, a young chap who by his own admission took his life for granted. By the time I had finished with him Steven had re-discovered how much it really means to him. How did we achieve this? By convincing him the world had ended.
Stoic Hellenistic philosophers advised us to rehearse regularly the loss of everything we love. Only that way, they believed, could we learn to value what we have in life, rather than fixate upon things we don't.
Seneca's advice, for example, to consider the mortality of your daughter as you kiss her goodnight, may strike us as morbid. But to remind yourself regularly that your loved ones, your home, in fact everything you valued might be taken away in an instant, is to value them so much more. It seems our psychological landscape hasn't changed much since Seneca was penning advice to his protégés in ancient Rome.
We are bombarded daily by overt and covert messages from advertisers, media and peers... The way to feel satisfied is to hunger after what you have already in your life. To master desire, we must learn to want what we already have.
OK, he's getting there:
In my new programme, Derren Brown: Apocalypse, Steven, who personifies that familiar sense of lazy entitlement so prevalent today, comes to believe that the world is going to end. He has no idea that he is the star of the an ambitious television show. We hack into his phone, control his Twitter and news feeds and have his favourite radio DJ and television hosts record special versions of their shows to play into his home - all of which refer to an impending meteor strike.
Once the seed is planted, we end the world for him while he's on his way to a gig. He passes out and then, seemingly two weeks later, he wakes up in an abandoned military hospital. The man who took his life and his family for granted must now fight to get them back.
And in a final twist, he'll have lurching hordes of infected zombies to deal with, as the meteor has picked up from its interstellar travels a deadly and highly contagious disease.
What follows is a carefully crafted horror-film plot, intricately designed to teach the unwitting Steven valuable lessons. The infected are, of course, hideous embodiments of his former slothful life. The survivors he encounters are created to teach him what he needs to know - about courage, about selflessness, about decisiveness. It's the Wizard of Oz with zombies.
With over 100 actors involved, along with nearly 60 meticulously hidden cameras, 2,000 ft of cabling, eight months of very hard work, and an extraordinary amount of money being spent, maintaining a seamless experience for Steven was paramount. Our survivor-actors were rehearsed for months to deal with every possible eventuality that Steven's never-entirely predictable behaviour might instigate. The whole illusion could have been brought down by the smallest of things - like the furry or undead entity that ate through our main cable on the first night and left us helpless in the morning.
That's the description of his programme, here's his self-justification:
What some people may ask is, was it worth putting someone through this to have them realise their potential? The response to that sensible question depends on two factors: a) the degree of negative emotions that he experienced and b) the level of change that the adventure brought about. And on balance my answer would be yes.
Steven's application to be part of the show incorporated a series of rigorous interviews with an independent psychiatrist, who had to be certain that Steven was robust enough to handle what was in store for him. At the same time, and with the full knowledge and help of Steven's family, the plot was carefully structured to ensure that we kept a sense of hope alive for him throughout.
Most importantly for me, as well as Steven, the changes have to be profound and self-perpetuating. The challenge is to set up new thought patterns that won't just grind to a halt after the initial adrenaline of being involved in a TV show has worn off. I have maintained a relationship with Steven and cont to ensure that the work was all worth it. Which is, along with the joy of going to such great lengths for one unsuspecting person's experience, the best part of the job.
Quite an elaborate rigmarole, no? Issues of free will, and its violation, anyone? I have found Derren Brown's stunts to be often boggling, baffling, thought-provoking, sometimes unpleasant and unsettling enough to make me question his basic orientation. And controversial: I saw one which had a volunteer subject, hypnotised into carrying out an assassination with dummy ammunition (a shooting in a theatre) who afterwards had no conscious memory of his act, which had been committed in full view of the cameras and a live audience. Brown was looking to demonstrate that 'Manchurian candidate' killers like Sirhan Sirhan (Robert F. Kennedy, denies all knowledge of his crime) could well have been programmed. Done the deed, have no knowledge how they had been programmed, or of the act they carried out. It was rather a compelling demonstration.
(As ever though, with Derren Brown, there may be another explanation than the obvious, with goodness knows what convoluted personal motivation. Quintuple bluff, no problem. You get the feeling he enjoys outwitting everyone, saving the very last laugh for himself. He pays the high price of never being totally believable, whatever he says.)
In the cases involving Derren Brown's covert manipulation of someone's life, the ones I have seen (or he shows us) the 'subject' typically ends up thanking him profusely for 'their best ever experience.' They appreciate the time and effort that has gone into the illusion/practical joke, feel privileged to have been able to benefit from an out-of-the-normal experience.
The show (it's a two-parter) will air on Channel 4 (in Blighty) on Friday, 9:00pm.
