#DBMillion
****Competition has now closed****
If you follow Derren on Twitter you may be aware by now that he has just passed the one million follower mark.
To celebrate the occasion, DB has devised an ingenious competition with the prize being a trip to The Ivy in London for dinner with Derren.
Watch the video below for full details (Your entry must be made via Twitter, not in the comments below!):
****Competition has now closed****
Derren: Number was 758 031 (looked at my Mac and noted time & date when I thought of competition & needed a number. 7:58 on 3 Jan).
Found a few that are close. Will keep looking later & announce winner.
New Portrait – Michael Sheen
‘Michael Sheen’ – acrylic on canvas 2011
I have known Michael for a little while, and recently went to see his Hamlet, directed by Ian Rickson and currently running at the New Vic. It’s phenomenal. Afterwards we had dinner and Michael spoke at length about what he and Ian had done with the play and why. A couple of weeks later we met again, I cooked an appalling piece of chicken and we asked him about his Passion, a mammoth modern unfurling of the Christ story spread across the streets and beaches of Port Talbot (an industrial port and market town where he grew up, and which has also produced Rob Brydon, Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton). Michael is deeply energised about his work, and if the formula for success is TALENT + ENERGY (as noted by my manager, who added wisely that the formal for stardom is SUCCESS + ATTITUDE) then Michael radiates them powerfully. He’s surely one of the most extraordinary actors of our generation, and possesses a phenomenal creative drive without any of the exhausting ego that normally accompanies mere dull ambition.
So, as I tend to paint people that I know and find extraordinary, I asked if he would mind awfully. A bit over a week later, interrupted by Christmas of course, and tweeted in its various stages, the large (it’s five foot high) portrait above was completed. For those who do not tweet, or for those who do but who might like to see the sequence together, and above all for those who give a jot because they paint and are interested in the process, I shall set it out as best as I can. Here then, is how it came together:
Channel 4 to take over London’s tube for New Year’s Eve
Click the Image to watch a clip
“Channel 4 is to become the first advertiser to take over every digital screen on the London underground with a New Year’s Eve campaign featuring 16 stars including Jamie Oliver, Zooey Deschanel and Gordon Ramsay.
The campaign, which showcases next year’s Channel 4′s shows, will include three 40-second video clips of its TV stars becoming “increasingly more debauched” over the course of the night.
The “party carriage” video clips – which feature stars including Derren Brown, Alan Carr, Jon Snow and Kirstie Allsopp as “unlikely tube fellows” – aim to mimic a typical commuter using the tube to get to, and from, New Year’s Eve parties.
The videos will run from 6am on 31 December until “early morning” on 1 January.
Channel 4 said the first video clip will see its stars travelling on the tube “side by side, minding their own business, on their way to their respective big nights out”.
Later on, the scene will change and become “increasingly more debauched featuring Channel 4 stars looking slightly the worse for wear”.
Digital poster panels on escalators will appear to show Channel 4 talent travelling alongside commuters to catch the tube.”
Read more at The Guardian
Svengali 2012 – Aylesbury Tickets On Sale 22nd Dec
Just a quick post to let you all know that Svengali will be coming to Aylesbury from the 28th May 2012 through to 2nd June 2012.
Tickets go on sale Thursday 22nd Dec.
You can find a list of other 2012 tour dates at http://derrenbrown.co.uk/tour-dates/svengali/
New Paintings
I’ve been spending a bit of time in my painting studio. I thought I might update you. Twitter followers will have seen a shot of me painting the pianist James Rhodes. Here we are:
And here’s a better shot of the painting itself:
They’re acrylic on canvas. I’ve also been back and worked on the portrait of my father. Here it is, about the same size (5ft high) as the one of James:
and, for those who enjoy such things, a bit of detail:
Next up is actor friend Michael Sheen. I’ve taken a few shots and I’m about to get started. (I always take my own photographs and work quietly from them in my own time, as I only get a few hours here and there to paint). I’ll let you know when it’s done. What a great guy to paint. I can’t wait.
There are a few more pictures of portraits (including some of the older caricatures of Rufus Wainwright, Tom Waits, Clint Eastwood et al) on the artwork page of the main site. I’ll let you know here next time I have an exhibition: should be one next year somewhere.
Right, Merry Christmasses or just Happy Holidays, depending on whatnot. Ta-ta for now.
dx
Derren Discusses The Secret of Luck
If you head over to Channel 4′s website for the Experiments you will be able to see an exclusive interview in which Derren explains where the ideas behind the show came from.
Click the link below to view:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown/articles/derren-brown-on-channel-4
Derren Brown – The Secret of Luck: Tonight at 9pm Ch4
Just a little reminder that the final episode in ‘The Experiments’ series airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.
Leave your thoughts on the show in the comments section below, or click here to watch a sneak preview 
New York State of Mind
Derren is planning to take a theatre show to New York towards the end of 2012.
Whilst, at this stage, we have no further details, we are asking if you would be interested in seeing Derren perform live in New York.
If this is the case, then do yourself a favour and sign up to the exclusive mailing list that we have created. This way you will be the first to get further information should the performances go ahead.
Exclusive Sneak Preview: Derren Brown – The Secret of Luck – 11th Nov
The Experiments – The Secret of Luck, airs Friday 11th November at 9pm on Channel 4.
Derren Brown Interview – The Times
Here’s a recent Interview with Derren that appeared in The Times a couple of weeks ago which some of you may have missed.
Note from Derren: I do NOT iron my jeans. No idea where that came from.
The Illusionist Derren Brown tells Stefanie March how he has always felt a bit different.
Is Derren Brown a normal bloke who surrounds himself with eccentric things, or is he a weirdo as well? His former writing partner once described him as “genuinely odd” and, certainly, there are a lot of dead animals in his apartment. The few live ones are a blue parakeet and a handful of multicoloured fish. The dead ones include a pickled baby chimp and a spaniel that lies placidly at the foot of a living room armchair next to an equally dead Yorkshire terrier.
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