BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.

Every week I ask my guests to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take

with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

I hope you enjoy listening.

Music Radio Music

My cast away this week is the illusionist and mentalist Darren Brown.

He started out doing table magic in Bristol restaurants, but over the course of his 20-year

career, slight of hand has become slight of mind.

His award-winning shows have evolved to encompass an evermore daring blend of psychology, illusion,

hip-nosis, suggestion, memory and perception.

He's played Russian roulette on live TV, predicted winning lottery numbers, convinced a bunch

of middle managers to commit arm-drobbery and hood-winked one man into believing that

the apocalypse has taken place, leaving only him and a few zombies behind.

If there is a common thread in this varied portfolio, it might be an enduring fascination

with the nature of belief, the stories we tell ourselves about what is true.

Once an evangelical Christian is now a committed atheist, he's written a book about philosophy

and happiness and has a sideline in uncovering tricksters who manipulate other people's

credulity for their own ends, debunking the methods of psychics, mediums, faith healers,

new age gurus and ghost hunters.

He says, I think as you grow up, you realise that being impressive is actually not an important

...