Mind-Bending Magic: Astonishing Coincidences and Synchronized Illusions | Derren Brown

If you'd like to have a seat, Jane. OK. Jonathan, thank you. Thank you both very much indeed. Before we start, it's very important you have a playing card in your mind, all right? So, I want this to be a free choice. So, colour-wise, you've got red or black. So, which would you rather have? Red. Red, which is... Diamonds and hearts. Any preferred suit out of those two? Hearts. Hearts, OK. And number-wise, so you've got between one and ten. Not... Again, don't... But not three, because there are three of us. But a number? Seven. Seven, OK. So, seven of hearts, all right? You happy to... Yeah. ..have that card in your mind as you do it? Yeah. Happy that was a free choice? Yeah. OK, great. Jonathan as well, if you can think of the seven of hearts as well for me. Excellent. You've got a deck of cards in front of you. Now, you'll notice I've been delightful enough to put these into new deck order, so you can see that they're all there. Do have a look and check that they are indeed all present. Happy with that? Yep. Then I'd like you to gather up the cards for me and take them under the table and to shuffle them under the table as best as you can without dropping any. Please bear in mind, at no point during this am I going to touch those cards, all right? Those will now remain in your hands throughout all of this. OK, great. While you do that, and feel free to stop whenever you like, I'm going to tell you three stories. Three stories of coincidence. I promise you these are absolutely real as far as I know these stories did happen. Also, let me ask you, how long have you two been together for? 72 years. I think it's about 18 years. Is it 18 years? Yeah. I'm doing it in dog years. The reason why I ask is that these stories also tie in with the idea of relationships and what goes on between people, all right? The first tale of coincidence, the first one of the three, this was told to me by my flatmate, Stephen, who I live with in Bristol. And he'd been going out with a girl called Marie, and they were sitting on this park bench at a place called Brandon Hill in Bristol, looking up at a very starry sky. Marie said that she'd never seen a shooting star. So Stephen's like, well, we should wish for one. And they do, they're mucking around, but they wish for it out loud. And no sooner were those words out of their mouth that a big shooting star shot across the sky. And, you know, they're dumbfounded. Stephen comes back and tells me this story, and he's almost in tears. And you think on the one hand, oh, that's amazing, and you love it, but you're sort of also thinking in the back of your mind, well, yes, but aren't there shooting stars every ten minutes? And you don't normally notice them. But you kind of don't want to say, well, it's just a coincidence, because it's coincidences like that that can absolutely make people fall in love that you could base a ten-year relationship on. I don't think for them it was. I think maybe he went down on her that night, but I don't think they ever saw each other again. But it's a lovely story. You've got the cards under the table. I'd like you to please reach in and pull out a card, turn it around, and put it back in so it goes in the wrong way. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. Yeah. So all the others are face up and one's going back in face down. Does that make sense? Have we done that? Yeah. Great. And then give them another little mix for me. The second story of coincidence, this is more amazing. It's absolutely true. Again, this was a guy who worked for a car repair service that we can't name who was out in the middle of the night, and he's in the middle of nowhere, fixes the car that he has to deal with, and is then walking back to his van. The car is now driven off, and he walks past a phone box, and the phone starts ringing in the box. So he's in the middle of nowhere. He goes in and answers it and picks it up, and it's his wife. And she's saying, Oh, can you remember to pick up some bread and some milk on the way home? And he says, Well, yeah, okay, but how did you know to ring this number? And she says, No, I just rang your new mobile number. He says, No, you just rung a phone box in the middle of nowhere. And she says, No, no, no, no. And she gets this bit of paper, and she realizes she hasn't called his mobile number. What she's done, weirdly, she's got his payroll number written down, and she's called that number instead of his mobile number, and his payroll number just happened to be the number of a phone box, which also happened to be the same phone box he happened to be walking past at that time. It's amazing. And it really is difficult to dismiss that just as a coincidence, because it's easier somehow to believe emotionally, certainly, that people in some sort of relationship, when they're in love or together, maybe some communication goes on between them, which the rest of us don't get in on somehow. All right. So you've got the cards under the table. You've got one card around the wrong way. Yep, one card around the wrong way. Please do give them another little mix so you know they're all shuffled. The third tale of coincidence I'm not going to tell you, but I'm hoping that you'll be telling everybody this story tomorrow. The card that you've both been thinking of, it was the... Seven of hearts. The seven of hearts. Was that right? Seven of hearts it was, yeah. We'll just bring the cards out from underneath. Put them face up on the table. And if you just face up, that's right. I don't want to touch them. Just spread them out. You should each have a card face down. Just give them a good spread. Do you want to just find that card? Oh, there it is. And if you just want to move that forward and move that forward for me. Now there's one. Excellent. Do you want to turn that one over, James? Sure. Wow. Oh my God. Big moment. Come on. No, no. Through love, you and me. No. That's extraordinary. Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. Wow, fantastic. I'm so startled. I could not begin to imagine, and I can only assume that Darren has some sort of special talent. Because normally the card is forced on you in some way. When people, they hold out the cards. I don't know how they do even that, but you know they force it on you in some way. The fact that the deck of cards never left my hands. Never left the table, then under their hands. I don't know how he did it. I'm amazed. I don't understand. When I had to turn my card over, I still, up until the moment when I turned it, still didn't think it would be the seven of hearts. I kind of knew it probably would be, because I know how good Darren is. I don't know how he does it. But at the same time, every logical fiber of my being was saying it cannot possibly be the seven of hearts because you shuffled them. And the fact that we both completely had free will in the card that we turned over. And you chose via free will. Probably a microchip in it. Yes, that's how he does it. It's covered in honey.