Blogmas Day 22: Derren Brown: The Specialist

Image from Channel 4/ 4 on Demand website

Last night after finished watching Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1 (Did you watch too? I am such a big fan of the show!!), I wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet, and I suddenly remembered that I haven't yet caught up with the Derren Brown: The Specialist show on Channel 4, which was aired on Friday, but I missed it because I went to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park (which was brilliant! You can catch my blog post here).


I would never miss a Derren Brown, they are pure fascinations and the tricks are so cleverly done. This time, in The Specialist (or The Great Art Robbery), Derren was trying to gather a team of "specialists" to steal a painting that was worth £100,000 from an art gallery, which he had forewarned the gallery owner the exact time, place, the person who was going to steal it and the exact painting that was going to be stolen.

The team of "specialists" were in fact old age pensioners! I know!! You are thinking "Old people? To steal a painting in an art gallery? Really??" On the day of the robbery, Derren even invited the gallery owner to monitor the whole thing on CCTV camera! It didn't scream out success, did it?

The key skill to the steal was distraction. However, being a Derren Brown project, a simple key skill is never that simple, and as you will learn from the programme that distraction has many levels... I will leave you to watch the show to find out yourself!

You can catch up the show on 4oD now. Although all online catch up have an expiry date, there are still around 20 days left to be on the website. So in this Christmas period, if you are finding yourself re-watching too many Christmas movies, go to 4oD website to give it a watch! It was so cleverly done.

What have you been watching on TV lately?