Derren Brown: 5 Best TV Specials and Secrets Of How They Were Done

3. How To Win The Lottery

The Premise As part of a series of events In 2009 Derren brought us €˜How to win the lottery€™. Live on Channel4 (with the lottery on BBC as an inset) we see Derren with 6 lottery numbers in front of him (facing away from the screen). A very slow show without audience simply showed the lottery draw at the bottom of the screen and, once the full draw had happened (I was back and forwarding to BBC1 at this time and know it was as live as tv ever can be) he turns the numbers around and he was right. How It Was Done I simply have no idea, this was obviously a trick- and a very good one at that. Suggestions at the time included€ Using pre-recorded footage, fixing the lottery, using a graphics overlay to add the numbers, time travel (admittedly my own flippant idea), and many more. Personally I don€™t buy any of those answers, do you?
Contributor
Contributor

Former TV Exec now enjoying a calmer existence... Big lover of all things animated and sci-fi with a few guilty pleasures alongside