The Gathering by Derren Brown

The Gathering was a specially recorded as-live show at a secret location (hidden from the audience) with an invited audience of students from Roehampton University， celebrities， psychologists， psychics， taxi-drivers and magicians. It was filmed on 18 May 2005 and broadcast on 29 May. As part of the show Brown recalled streets， page numbers and grid references from the Greater London A-Z map. Also pseudo-psychic “mind reading” and “remote viewing” activities were recreated. During the show， Brown hypnotised the audience as a group and convinced them that for approximately half an hour after leaving the room， they would have no memory of the events. Furthermore， the word “forget” was intermittently flashed very briefly on the backdrop throughout the performance. A variety of audience members were interviewed afterwards; some of them couldn’t recollect anything (but were nevertheless very impressed); brief clips of these interviews were shown. One of the most memorable stunts was getting a London taxi driver to choose a street in London and then choose and mentally drive a random route. This was achieved by drawing a line on a map of London made of stuck together A-Z pages. An envelope， which had been visible onstage throughout the entire show was then opened. This contained a card listing the page number and coordinate of the destination， an acetate with the route marked on it and a receipt for ￡8 (the estimated cost of the journey by the driver). He started in Buckingham Palace and ended up in Shepherd’s