Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 272: Derren Brown

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Who could’ve predicted that, for the final episode of the series, we’d have Derren Brown in the Dream Restaurant? Oh… Derren Brown is on tour in 2025 with his new show ‘Only Human’. Get tickets at derrenbrown.co.uk Follow Derren on Instagram and Twitter @derrenbrownOff Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Acaster here with the off-menu podcast before we get into today's episode Please I'd like to let you know that my show hecklers welcome live at the KLV in Kettering has been released on vinyl And we're doing a repressing so get online And buy that vinyl it's a show where on the night that we recorded it I've pretty much got through 5% of the material and most of it is me dealing with the audience as God intended You can get it from my website Jamesamesacaster.com or pretty much anywhere I think. You know how to work the internet. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life.

I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery visit CAMH.ca. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice,

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Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Welcome to the off menu podcast peeling the carrot of conversation. Ooh, carrots. Just peeling the carrot of conversation. Ooh, carrots. Just peeling the carrot? Yeah, just raw carrot. Having a raw carrot like a proper. Yeah.

It's the final episode of the series. The final one, but not the final one ever I predict. God no. That is a gamble. My name is James Aker. So this is the off menu podcast and every single week we invite a guest for our dream restaurant and ask them their favourite ever starter, main course, dessert, side dish and drink.

Not in that order. And this week, I predict that our guest will be... Derren Brown! Lovely bit of business from you there, James. Yeah, pretty good. People didn't see it, but I put my fingers to my temples when I predicted it. Yeah, like a mentalist. Like a mentalist. I am a bloody mentalist mate. Ask my mates.

I'm your mates. That's a gamble. I'm a gamble. That's James A. Castor. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. We're excited to talk to our very special guest, the wonderful Darren Brown. Trej, National Trej. It's a National Trej and you know, we grew up watching Darren Brown. Yes. And I think it's a similar feeling to when we had Louis Ferroux on.

I remember them, you know, arriving on the scene, the TV scene, watching their early stuff and watching it right through to the modern day. I feel like I've watched everything they've done. Yeah. So it's evolved amazingly as well as just incredible live shows as well. Yeah. Yeah. Very excited to have Darren on.

Benito, this is obviously Benito doesn't talk on the podcast, but I just think the listeners should know he loves magic. That's why he's called the great Benito because he was a magician when he was a little boy. And he loves Darren Brown. So you know, I think it's just good to know in that this episode, how much Benito is loving it. So Benito will hate it if we have to ask Darren Brown to leave the restaurant. He would hate it.

And we've chosen a very, well, we'll explain why we've chosen it. But the secret ingredient, which will getvin Brown kicked out of the dream restaurant is mini rolls I Can't figure out how he did it. It was a trick. I guess. Mm-hmm. I guess you call it a trick magic trick I guess you call it magic trick with the League of Gentlemen all four of them and There's a whole bunch of different moving parts to the trick but they basically come in the room they each pick a mini roll each off of the plinth the last person has to take two because there's one extra they all sit down on some chairs randomly just as sit wherever you like then he mixes some

envelopes up on the table says it all pick it all pick an envelope and then they open their envelopes and their envelopes each say you will pick and then a color different color yeah and then he says each of you reach under your seats and they've all got a piece of card that corresponds to the color So that's bonkers and then that could have just been the trick and I would have been like that's pretty impressive because that seemed Random and then he gets me and then he gets him to open the mini rolls and they all eat their mini rolls And then there's that one spare one that was left And then he's like open that one and he gives him some protective gloves and then they

open it and there's a razor blade in it. Yes. Could have killed someone. That's scary man. It's scary I always think about it I was thinking I don't know how he did any of that. The thing is James I know we're gonna pick we're picking mini rolls as a secret ingredient but I know you really want to talk to Derren Brown about that mini rolls thing so that feels unfair. Well I'll wait until the end. Okay. I'll wait until after we've done dessert. Yeah. Okay. And I'll say, deal. How'd you do that mini rolls bit?

Yeah. But also I want to do a magic trick on him. Okay. I love it when he does predictions. Yeah. I think we should predict his dream menu. Yes. Got it.

Write it down. Yeah. Put it in an envelope. We'll do that. Put it in the middle of the table. Yeah. We don't touch it for the whole thing. At the end, we get him to open it.

We don't touch it. And then we can see if we predicted his dream menu. We'll write out his dream menu before he gets here. Yeah, magic trick. It's going to blow up from his mind. Because he doesn't know Benito's a magician. No. So we know what we're doing.

Yeah. You know what you're doing, right, Benito? Benito knows what he's doing. He's got the magic. So hopefully he won't choose mini rolls, because otherwise he won't be able to do the magic trick at the end. Or maybe the envelope will say you will get kicked out. Also, I really want to speak to Derren Brown, so I hope he doesn't get kicked out. Yeah, yeah. Maybe if he does get kicked out, we'll just re-record this bit and say it was something else. Say it

was radishes or something. Tickets for Derren's next show are on sale now at derrenbrown.co.uk. He doesn't need our help. He doesn't need our help, but you know, maybe you do this. Maybe you need our help in order to get the tickets before everyone else. Yes, I predict you will get the tickets. I predict some of you will get the tickets. This is the off menu menu of Derren Brown. Welcome, Darren, to the Dream Restaurant. Hello. Welcome, Darren Brown, to the Dream Restaurant. Been expecting you for some time.

I have been waiting to come on for some time. This is so exciting. Thank you for having me. We're very excited. We're very excited. I'm very excited. Although, what I sense with your genie explosion there, you sort of held it back a little bit. No I didn't. Did I? Well I've got a burp trapped here and I didn't want to burp at Darren.

No, that would be an uncomfortable way of starting on, not interview, chat. Yeah, another chat and it's quite rude to start. I think I'd have to just like excuse myself and just let you two chat and leave the room. And Darren is excited to be here and I think that would have maybe killed the vibe straight away if James and Bert were here. It would have just started things off and slightly off note but you could have stopped and started again because it's so early in the chat. Yes, it's early enough in the chat.

It's early in the chat. Do you like chats in general? I like a chat, yeah. I like a chat. This is very nice. I've listened to many of your chats in the car. You're my go-to in the car chat. So this is very lovely being here in the actual room where it happens.

Yes. Now do you want to like, some people like to imagine the dream restaurant and what it looks like. I didn't imagine this. I didn't quite imagine this. It's an enormous grand, well it's like the foyer of a very expensive hotel isn't it? Is that how you describe it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. It's gorgeous. Thank you for having me.

When we ask people to imagine that, you're probably going to get a lot of questions like this from us because we haven't had anyone in your line of work on the podcast before. Have you not? It's very exciting because I haven't had a mentalist on the podcast. Now, when we ask people when they come on, what's your dream restaurant look like? And they give an answer. If you heard those answers, would you be able to say what that says about them? Oh, I suppose so a little bit. Yeah. I never do this stuff in real life. I kind of like, it's become a real sort of, um, I could be exhausting to go around being that guy in

real life. And also I'm quite, I'm over the years got quite interested in Stoicism and the whole thing of Stoicism, you know, not to try and control the things that are outside of your control. And yet that's exactly what my job is. So, uh, yeah, probably with a bit of thought, but I try not to use my magical skills in everyday life. But I mean, you're somebody who likes to chat famously. Do you feel like when you're chatting to someone for the first time, are they constantly on guard as if you are, you are trying to... Yeah.

I had a friend who's now a very good friend who actually I'm seeing immediately after this podcast. And I found out quite a way into our relationship that it was a good few times of this meeting before he could actually just relax and have a normal chat like this. Yeah. Because he thought I was constantly doing... I don't know what people think. I don't know what it is. That you'd climbed into his brain or something.

That I'm climbing into his brain or judging or whatever, yeah, all that stuff. I really don't, I'm very, um... No, but I mean, it's a compliment to your work, is, you know, the work's excellent, so... Well, it's like we always get, yeah, with people, those go like, oh, I'm probably going to put this in your act, aren't you? And we're not, and we're not thinking that about them at all. But with you, it must be a much more extreme version of that of like, you're probably going to

make me kill Stephen Fry. Yeah. That is, uh, I had a lot of, uh, I think pretty much every time I, if I go into a shop and ask how much something is, I get a lot of, Oh, you should know, shouldn't you? Like that's that I've lived with that one for a very long time. Yeah. That's a, that's pretty standard response, isn't it? Yeah. What about to anyone? Yeah. To anyone. That's just rude. It's just rude.

You should know. Yeah. What the hell? Didn't you do one when you went in and you, and you tricked them into thinking the price was less. Have you done that or am I making stuff up in my head now? No, no, no. That's the sort of thing I would have done. I was paying for stuff with paper in New York and seeing how long I could do that for. That's a laugh. Yeah, I got away with that for some time if you kind of do it confidently enough.

I think it must have felt like they'd missed something and I think that's quite an interesting space when you just sort of feel bewildered and like you've slightly missed something and you're not, and you, it's like if somebody comes up to you in the street and says, you know, it's not 20 to four, your reaction isn't to go, yeah, I know, it's half 7 or whatever. You sort of feel like you've missed something and it's a very powerful place to put people in. If you, like, you know, if you're, someone's aggressive to you in the street, I mean, if they're running at you with a knife, it's different, but if they're like intimidating you and you come out with that sort of stuff or come out with a song lyric or something,

it completely changes the dynamic and undoes their feeling of power and I've got out of a couple of potentially violent situations like that. So yeah, that's the confusion. I had that on the tube the other day, I did that. There was a lady on our carriage who was yelling at everyone very, very loudly about how we're all going to die one day and we're going to go to hell if we don't accept Jesus. And I was standing up to leave and she was shouting it directed at me. And I just went, is this the right train for Wilson Green or not? Do you know? And she just looked at me like,

what the f**k? And then I just walked off and she was there in silence. I was like, that seems like a good way of dealing with it. I asked them something normal and they're like, Jesus said I should help this person, but I don't want to yell at them. Did she answer the question? No, she just stared at want to yell at them. Did she answer the question? No, she just stared at me like I was mad. Well you suddenly brought her into normal society, which she should be doing on a tube. Yeah.

Did I just do the right thing? That's great. That was good actually. I was quite pleased. Yeah, excellent. I always think a song lyric is a good one as well, if you've got something up your sleeve that you can just go into confidently. As if, yeah, it used to make sense

just not in context with the situation. What's your go-to song lyric for the... My go-to phrase is the wall outside my house isn't four foot high. I don't know how, I never done, I just thought a song lyric was an easy thing to say to somebody if you, if you rather, but yeah, that's, that's my, that's my go-to. It works. Is that from a song? That's not a song, no.

It should be. Not yet. That should be a good song. Yeah. You say you don't really think in those terms all the time. You spend a lot of your time doing painting as well. I've sort of taken a bit of time off. Well, as we're recording this, I've had a good chunk of time off. Probably by the time this goes out, I shall be touring.

But I've been painting at home. I paint portraits and I put them on my website and sometimes people buy them and put them on their walls and things, which is nice. So that's a really lovely, that's kind of what I do in my, that's what I do in my real life as opposed to controlling people. But I am writing, yeah, starting to get my head around a new tour for next year. Can I say the title? Cause I only know the title. It's called Only Human. And as we talk now, Only Human is only a title. I haven't written a word of it. And you must have had this situation yourself where you've, it's out there being marketed and people are buying tickets perhaps and you have no idea what the first, and people say, Oh, I've

got a ticket on there on the first night. I'm in the front row. And you just, I haven't got a clue. You want to go, you've done more for this show than I have. Exactly. I've still got used to over 20 years of doing it, but it's always a little odd. Do you have that panic when there's nothing or do you know the rhythm of building a show so much now that you just know it's going to be fine? Yeah, exactly. It's that I've sort of, yeah, we have a month of writing and then a month

of rehearsing and then it starts and it's the sort of thing. And I guess we stand up my guess probably with any, even just a play you expect to change a lot once you get it on his feet but I mean I really don't know what will work just technically what will work until there's an audience because a lot of the stuff I do needs a thousand people to watch it because then they're only gonna work with maybe a few percent of that so like it's just no way of knowing so it's always a nervous start but yeah that that rhythm of making it and just going through the first couple of weeks of, I don't, one of the shows miracle was faith healing in the second half.

But every time you, if you go and see a faith heal, you know, there's evangelical types, you're going there as a believer. And I knew my audiences would be like, hey, you know, not believe any of it and not be ready for it, not be, not have that psychological preparation for it or anything. So yeah, it can be a bit nerve wracking at the start. Do you then have to re-engineer how you don't know you've won these things? You can't really like reveal how you do these things, but like do you have to like go? Okay, that's how I'm presenting it, but I'm gonna try and like I have to trick them a different way cuz they're different

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have to well after not you so much, but I have to find ways of sort of saying Yeah, this is like this is what the charlatans would do or this is kind of this is stuff That's fate and I'm just going to do that now like you have to kind of set a certain parameters around it I guess so people people are on side but I was mad actually that one I remember in the first week somebody came up and they've been paralyzed down their left hand side their bodies since they were a kid and she was a lady in her 40s and she's in floods of tears because she can move her arm like for the first time and I haven't done anything other than just you know words but just that but the adrenaline of the situation and the kind of it's the psychological component of suffering like nothing's changed if you x-rayed her before and

after clearly nothing's changed but yet her whole relationship to this pain that she'd live with it just massively altered so it was that was that was an amazing show to do actually, night to night, just the sort of things that people would respond to. After that though, do you think I should just do that all the time? I did! I really did. I thought I could do it in a secular way. I could say this is just what it is and there's no... I could say all of the things I just said to you, but I could probably pack out a stadium doing that. And then I realized that's how you start to go mad. But it feels really plausible at the time.

I'm like, no, this works. This is a service that I'm providing. I'll be one of the good ones. I'll be one of the really good ones. Yeah. I've seen way more adverts for things like that on the side of buses now, like the O2 Arena, like big church meetings and stuff. I've seen loads of adverts for it and it's always the shiniest looking men.

Very shiniest, yeah, really shiniest, a lot of white suits and I've been to a few of those things that are incognito. And it is amazing what a weird world you're stepping into. Because it is, not to offend anyone that's into this kind of thing, but if you're as an outsider sitting there, it's a weird mix of sort of amazing and kind of disgusting at the same time, just this of bet which is, you know, it's a strange, you know, the Venn diagram of those emotions. It's odd to be in the middle of that, but it, cause it's such a closed world and they

really go for it. And I remember, you know, seeing some poor kid, like a six year old girl on the stage being exorcised of demons and the adrenaline and the whole thing of it was sort of amazing, but it was also kind of really gross at the same time as well. So yeah, it was a very odd, odd world. And when you go to that, are you like, are there certain things that you're watching and going, oh, I could incorporate that into what I'm doing? Or are you going just to kind of understand?

No, yeah, I was actually what I was doing. I was kind of researching and sat there with glasses on and a baseball cap. Well, you've already noticed, but you haven't spoke to us about it. But for the listener, I don't think you weren't here when me and Darren walked into the studio. Yes. He saw what we're about to describe and went, all right. There's an envelope that says prediction on it and a pen. We would like you to sign across the, the sealed bit of the envelope on the back. We've made a prediction that we sealed bit of the envelope on the back. We've made a prediction that we will reveal at the end of the podcast. Oh, okay.

That's exciting. Yeah, so we can't do anything with it. You know what? You can put it wherever you like as well. You don't have to put it in front of you. I'm putting it in front of me so you don't touch it. Yeah, yeah. Put it right there.

Wow. You can do it on me. Pretty good. We don't do this for everyone. No, well, I wouldn't make any... This is not a recommendations for anyone else. I've never noticed this in the podcast. We always start with still a spark in water down. Do you have a preference? Yeah, well sort of. So I don't have any very strong feelings about it, but I do like a, I like a San Pellegrino. San Pellegrino is, you know, it's kind of

soft and kind of, but like, yeah, I don't like that kind of aggressive bubbly... You know, it should be a simple act of hydration, not a surprise sneezing fit, which is normally where it goes. So yeah, I don't mind too much, but I think I'd probably go... I would probably go still and not too cold. And I don't like the jugs that are full of ice and lemon because they plop in your drink and yeah. Is it the plopping that you don't like? It's the plopping. Yeah. It's really unnecessary and also I've got so to like you know warming up and things before shows and you know what it's

like you don't want cold water for that because it's kind of shocks your throat so I've got I quite like a sort of tepid water like Ben's given me here Lovely tepid water Supplies your guests a kind of room temperature minimal effort also Yeah it is to be fair, there's nothing plopping in your drink here I didn't get offered a choice of still or sparkling No, that's weird isn't it that we don't offer a guess the choice of still or sparkling in real life No, it's all fake

That is weird actually, I've never thought about that But it is weird that we was giving you some water and then we say, would you like still or sparkling as a hypothetical. We've not talked about the plopping a lot before. We've not talked about how much it plops when there's stuff in there, especially the ice. And when ice gets caught in like the lip of a jug, you're not sure when it's going to plop in, but it always plops in at the least convenient moment. Well, and also it sort of diverts the water stream.

And then someone gets the lemon and then no one else has gotten in lemon. Yeah. I, I, yeah, that's all, that's all really annoying. But you should get the lemon cause you're Darren Brown. Should get the lemon. You should know how to get it every time. I always read Chilli's recipe. Just take it.

Um, that's kind of a restauranty thing, isn't it? There are many restauranty things, well, not many, a few restauranty things I don't care for and that's certainly one of them. Do you eat out a lot? I do, yeah. I like food. I'm definitely a foodie, but I actually decided to opt for a sort of home restaurant situation for today.

Okay, nice. I just, I don't like if my waiters point at your food. I don't like it when they get really close with their finger. Maybe this is just like a nicer restaurant thing. But has anybody else brought this one up? No, I'm not sure. We're not at the plopping, we're not at the pointing. Okay. All right. I'm going to work alphabetically through my fingers. So yeah, that thing with the finger, when they come in, they go, this is a carrot and they're pointing and they're not actually touching the food because you can slide a

sheet of paper between the fingers to prove it. But that's an annoying habit that I don't like. It's sort of like operation, the game. It's like that. Well, they hover it just above. Have you ever been tempted to get your plate and just move it up really quickly so their finger goes right in your food? You have to grab the whole table. No, you could do the whole table. Yeah.

No, you'd grab the plate and lift it. No, I haven't done that, but that would defeat the point because contamination is the risk. Yeah, but then you'd get a new one, right? You'd simply get- But they'd be so embarrassed. How would they give you a new one if you'd just lift the table up into their finger? I'll tell you who would struggle with that. Martin Freeman. He's very weak. He can't even lift a plate. Oh, he was on my show being weak. I said, I thought you were just being mean about him.

Don't go to lift a plate. You can lift a plate. You can just say Darren when he's in the room, James. Don't put a phone on the back of his neck. He told him all stuff about crystals. He said, this is really powerful. He said, this is, he said, Martin, this is a really powerful phone. And then he couldn't lift the things up. He couldn't lift stuff up. He could lift a pencil up. That's right He couldn't lift a plate up. It was embarrassing. It's a plate with like a sandwich on it. That's right. God. Yes We watched all your stuff We know it all but like yeah, I mean what you doing something like that with something like my friend Freeman Are you like man? You're to make you look so weak on TV?

You're loving it. I think anyone remembers that. Apart from the fact he is brilliant. But I think I don't think anyone's ever mentioned the making Martin Freeman weak. That's very, that's very nice. It's a good one. Yeah, that's great. Good one.

Maybe he mentions it. Maybe he mentions it. I think we had him on the podcast. Maybe we did bring it up. I don't know if we brought it up or not. So it's very well dressed. Maybe he mentions it. Maybe he mentions it. I think we had him on the podcast. Maybe we did bring it up. I don't know if we brought it up or not. So he's very well dressed. Yeah. Very well dressed.

It was during lockdown. He was on Zoom. So we're on Zoom. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if he's still a little dicky bow. Still look pretty good, I bet. But I like that your interpretation of it is wasn't Martin Freeman embarrassed when he came out and said he was weak, but he probably just thought, oh, I'm on a Derren Brown show and Derren's done a trick on me. No, cause Derren, when Derren told him all the stuff, when Derren was weak, but he probably just thought, Oh, I'm on a Derren Brown show and Derren's done a trick on me.

No, cause Derren, when Derren told him all the stuff, when Derren was like, all that stuff I told you was nonsense, by the way, you could tell he was like, I'm just a weak man in his eyes. It was like, Oh no. If you'd given him a whole spiel about how the energy in crystals is the same as our energy in the phones, the vibrations in the phones are the same as the vibrations in the crystals. I'm going to put it on the back of your neck now, Martin. Now try and lift this. It can't lift a plate. Oh, I've fooled. It can't lift a pen.

Ultimately, I'm cleverer than you is the bottom line of anything I do. That's the take on. That's the take on, especially for Martin Freeman. Yeah, and stronger. And so much stronger than Martin Freeman. Stronger man than you. Pop lobs or bread? Pop lobs or bread, Darren Brown? Pop lobs or bread? Oh my! Jesus, the bread. I'm going for the, there's a group, I used to live not far from Dalston and there is a place there called the Dusty Knuckle and it's, do you know it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I found out many years later that they employ, I think it's people, ex-prisoners perhaps? And so, which given it's got a slightly charitable edge to it, you might expect that to sort of take the edge off the quality of the bread if anything, but it doesn't. The bread's amazing. Right, yeah, yeah. It's still bread focused and charity focused.

It's phenomenal. Yeah, exactly. So I fell in love with that when I lived in London. Haven't had it for a while, but their sourdough. Of late I've discovered, I've been in Bristol a lot recently and Hart's Bakery in Bristol also does a very good, and also Reg the Veg, which is the world's greatest. Reg the Veg.

Reg the Veg. Is Hart's the one that's under Temple Meats? Yes, under Temple Meats Station. You come out and go down there. Phenomenal place. Yeah, the parts of Bristol, as I often do, that is definitely a great place. Really, really good. Great sausage rolls. Very good sausage rolls. Yeah, I love that place. It's brilliant. And oh, there you go. There you go. So yeah, I'd go for a really good sourdough. A nice sourdough, yeah. It's sort of the hipster of

the bread bowl, isn't it? I sort of hate myself saying it. But it is tasty though, isn't it? That's the thing. It is. And butter? Warm with butter, yeah. None of the oil nonsense. Yeah, yeah, warm and butter. A little bit of salt, cracked salt and that lovely. I never know whether when it's warm you feel they've just cooked it. It probably isn't. They probably just stick it in the microwave for a bit. Yeah, that's good. Or warm it up. But I, yeah. For the dream you want it out, you know, just cooked, right?

Yeah. We weren't microwaved but in the dream restaurant. No, you wouldn't do that. There wouldn't be a microwave in the dream restaurant. This is all, all bread is fresh out the oven. Yeah. Wow. Have you ever baked yourself? No, not myself

Yeah, that's the finale you're still writing this show this live show tonight you bake yourself you bake yourself I tried to I had the lockdown thing. I tried it like I did that like a lemon drizzle Yeah, a couple of things. Yeah of things, and then that was it. Did you? Did you embrace? Didn't do any baking, realised very quickly that shops were still open and stuff, you could go and get a loaf of bread. You could buy your own scones.

You mainly did barbecue in this guy. I did a lot of barbecue. Oh that's nice. I'm making rotisserie chicken quite a lot at the moment, I've got rotisserie in my new oven. Nice. That's nice. That is fun. I would find it very easy to

just watch it. Yeah, yeah. You do. You put the lights on, you just sit and watch it. Grab a stool or a cushion. And listen, I don't want to keep on chipping in ideas for your new shirt. But you got to find new ways of hypnotising people. A rotating chicken. Watch a rotisserie chicken. You go into a trance that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a toy, is it? Yeah, okay. Brilliant. Brilliant idea. Yeah.

A giant, giant chicken, clearly fake, but a giant chicken on stage rotating. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And they get hypnotized and then when they're hypnotized, you swap them with the chicken and then they wake up and they're spinning on the spit and you're like. And is it all chickens in the audience now? Yeah. The audience is full of chickens.

But the chickens headless because how are they watching? You haven't thought this through? No, I haven't thought it through. But they're headless at first then you restore their heads with magic. I love as we're talking, Ben's just like making notes. Ben's writing stuff down. Every time Ben writes stuff down you know it's... Well no, Ben's probably writing down the idea for the trick and then he's gonna do it himself.

Ben used to be a magician when he was a little boy. That's why his nickname is the Great Benito, because he called himself the Great Benito. He had a waistcoat and a magic box and everything and would put on magic tricks in the living room. He called himself the Great Benito, so he probably is writing down ideas for his magic show. Silently. Do you ever have that in your shows?

Can you ever look out and spot a magician in the audience like a fellow and go oh they're watching this differently and I'm not sure notes like Ben does yeah yeah gags and things and they've to write them down it's a little bit a little bit annoying yeah maybe sometimes you look out to the audience and there's a you know evangelist preacher doing the opposite of what you do. They're there in the cap and shades and they're getting ideas for when they exercise a six year old. Yes. Your dream starter. Right. Well, I'm at home doing my own cooking here. This is, this is integral to the, to

the setup, but yet the restaurantiness means I guess someone else is, you know, washing up and doing all that stuff. But I've got very nice lobster risotto that I make. So I would, I'm not, I wouldn't want, before though, going into this, Parmesan and red wine. I years ago read in an interview with Christopher Walken that that was his favorite snack. Oh. And I tried it. I thought it was quite nice.

And just of late in Venice, I had really like really good Parmesan, like at least sort of 50 something months aged. And that with a good red wine, with a good San Giovese perhaps is phenomenal. So there is that on the table as people are sitting down. I know that's quite a starter, but it's like a sort of a snack. A little chef's welcome. A little chef's welcome. Yeah.

So that, that would kick us off. And then we would move into the lobster risotto. That really sounded like you were lining one of us up for an impression on a US talk show where you said Christopher Walken was the one. I know, I know. I wonder how he would have said that. I was sort of hoping one of you would jump in with a wow. A lot of people have got a good walk in and I'm not one of them. Someone asked me to do it recently. Oh really? They shouted out, yeah, the audience started shouting out, because I'm not very good at impressions, so I could

run anything on this podcast, they started shouting out impressions, they started Christopher walking and I, in my head I was like, well everyone can do that. Yeah. Went for it, couldn't do it. Oh, you gave it a go. Why didn't you give it a go now and saying I love parmesan and red wine? I love parmesan and red wine. It's not bad, is it? Not the worst thing I've ever done. You threw your body into it as well, which I really like. I was trying to think, carry this watch, I possess.

I think that's a lovely way to, if I walked in somewhere and there was parmesan and red wine on the table. Yeah, it crumbled up, not grated. I mean, like chopped up into like little manageable bits. You want to get a good chunk, you want to get the good taste of the cheese. 50 mumps aged. Yeah, at least. I didn't even know that was a thing here.

You struggle to get more than whatever, 36 here. But it's really good. It's really good if you get it. Do you want the whole wheel on the table as you come in? So you can just sort of chip it away. good. It's really good if you get it. Do you want the whole wheel on the table as you come in? So you can just sort of chip it away. And then in the middle is the card that one of them chose. That's exactly right. All this prediction in this envelope.

Prediction in this envelope. Were you trying to give Darren another idea? I just think we could do an off menu, Darren Brown collab for the next tour and everything is food based. You crack the wheel of Parmesan and there's a card in the middle. Yeah. People do that in the middle. Yeah. People do that all the time. Yeah.

Devin's done it. I've been through or something and their things in there. They, they, they're so really good. It's a very good wheel of cheese. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if you could. I'm just, I'm trying to work out how you get something into a wheel of cheese.

Got one method, but I think it takes about four years. Worth it. False force feeling. Yeah, it's a 50 month trick. Yeah. You must have done a painting of Walken. I have, yeah. I have.

Yeah. Over the years, done a couple actually. Yeah. Yeah. How do you choose your subjects for your portraits? Um, just kind of great faces. I mean, you've got to, I spent a couple of weeks very close to the big big paintings as well So it's got to be someone whose face I want to paint

So I've just just started one of Jack Nicholson who's got a great. Yeah a great face and just finished one of Beethoven He's also got very interesting with Beethoven. You don't really know exactly what he looks like So yeah, just kind of working for the people's painting a Saint Bernard You think Beethoven looks like a Saint Bernard Oh, the people's painting. A Saint Bernard. It's a dog. You think Beethoven looks like a Saint Bernard? Why do you say Saint Bernard? Are you American? Well, that was what it was in the film.

Yeah. James thinking of the film. Beethoven the dog! Sorry! Yes, of course. Sorry, sorry, James. They couldn't have said Bernard in that. They did, but of course they did, because it's an American film. So how have you settled on what Beethoven actually looks like then for your one? I felt there's an artist I found who got hold of the death mask and was able to do like really accurate reconstructions and luckily they do all look a bit like the paintings. Yeah. Otherwise, that would have been a shame. And yeah, kind of so I worked from that. I

work from reference shots anyway. So I love it. It's just a way of spending two weeks or whatever, just like locked in a creative thing. It's brilliant. It's my favorite thing. Is it therapeutic or? Yeah, it really is. It really is. It's, I don't know, do you find it hard if you've been touring or something, it just sort of finishes and then you'll, there's like, and you get really irritated and you blame everybody else. You realize you're just in this slightly kind of thing. So having something like painting to go into,

it doesn't involve anybody else and just go away and do it. And yeah, it's the best. Yeah, maybe I need to do something like that. Cause I finished a tour and go, I can't wait. All I'm thinking about halfway through the tour is I can't wait for some time off doing nothing. And then I'm sat there doing nothing going, I feel really angry.

I'd love it if you started painting Ed. Yeah? Yeah. I'd love to see your paintings. I'll paint you. Okay. That's nice. Yeah? Yeah. I'd like to see your paintings. I'll paint you. Okay. That's nice. Yeah.

No one really knows what James looks like though. No. I'll have to track down his death mask. I've got one. Yeah. I'll lend you my death mask. Thank you mate. This lobster risotto sounds delicious, but let's get into it proper.

How you make it and like what? Oh, okay. Well, you make a bisque to start with. So you roast or dry pan your lobster shells with veg and then fish stock or water and perno and tomato puree, fennel, chilli. This recipe, I should say, it comes from a chef called Will Parks, who is now at the rather brilliant Pig Hotels. He gave me this and there's a couple of other things I should probably not say so I don't give away all his secrets and then you use this and fennel and chilli and

then you start off you've made a stock and then you use that stock in your risotto which I use cognac and vermouth with and then you reduce it. You reduce the stock to a bisque and then you add that bisque at the end into your risotto along with your lobster meat and lemon and some chives and that's it. And it should have the consistency of hot lava. It should tip like hot lava. Do you know this? No. This is the... you're supposed to be able to tilt the plate and a risotto should just move like lava as opposed to a wallop of stodgy that you often get.

I thought that was a good thing that's always stuck with me. Move like lava. Lava is a very funny thing to compare it to. Sure, because it's not something that loads of people have seen. Yes. Yeah, you're right. Or seen move. Maybe it's not very, also very hot as well.

You don't want your risotto that hot. Also, you would have thought with Italian food, the last thing they want to think about is lava in it. I was thinking that as well. In fact, I had this in Naples, which is not too far from Herculaneum. What's the other one called? What's the big one called? Pompeii.

Pompeii. Thank you. A good themed risotto though, wouldn't it in Pompeii? Very sensitive analogy to use in that part of the world. Get little shaped things under there. People going, oh! Model the rice into frightened shapes. Maybe that's what happened. We don't know, right, about the history.

We don't know. Maybe someone just made a massive risotto and everyone got trapped under it. Got out of hand. It was too hot. Get out of the way, it moves like lava. It moves like a... They wouldn't have the word. I was thinking Dante's Peak when the grandma's pushing wouldn't have the word. I was thinking Dante's Peak when the grandma's pushing the boat in the lava. She's waist

high in the lava. A couple of great film references from you today. Yeah, pretty good. Beethoven and Dante's Peak. Harking back man. It's the pierced Brosnan and Dante's Peak. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the grandma gets out of the boat. I guess it's not lava. It's like a lava infused

water. Like it's this lake that is like absolutely. It's lava stock. Like yeah, it's lava stock. It's absolutely mad hot lake that you shouldn't get in. And she's not going to get the grandkids to the end of the lake if she's in the boat. So she just gets out of the boat and she pushes it, but she's like, does she sacrifice herself? She sacrifices herself. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. And she's absolutely hates it. Like when she gets in the water, you can tell she's Yeah, that's nice. And she absolutely hates it. When she gets in the water, you can tell she's like, this wasn't worth it. I shouldn't have done this. She's a fool to herself.

She regretted it at the moment she got in the water. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It'd be a much better scene if she just put her toe in one. Absolutely no way. Yeah, nope. Sorry. Trap one of the kids in.

I haven't seen Dante's Peak. That doesn't even really ring a bell as a film. No, it feels like the sort of thing I have seen maybe 25 years ago. Yeah, it's just classic, you know, before the Kevin Odeon opened up and we had the, we had the Ohio. Everyone's nodding now and I get it. And it was like that period of film where you were going to see Daylight with Sylvester Stallone, Independence Day, obviously the big one that spawned all of them.

But all of those. Stargate. Stargate, absolutely. Me and my mum, as a surprise, took me to see Stargate. I went bananas for it. I loved it. Yeah. Really loved Stargate. Twister, no, with um, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. He is in it. Yeah. Yeah. His finest role. Yeah. Yeah. You must have drawn a, a, a PHS. You must have drawn Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yeah, I have. PSH. Fucking hell.

Devin's made me forget the alphabet. I thought you were asking if I had Twister on VHS. You must have Twister on VHS, Derrick. Actually, I did. Devin, you do. You do have it. You must have drawn Philip Zemar Hoffman. I have.

Yeah, I have. But I could do another one, actually, because that was a long time ago, and I don't think it was very good. Do him in Twister? Yeah. The Twister Do him in Twister. Yeah. The Twister one.

Just Twister. Yeah. In like a Hawaiian shirt and it was... The cap on. Yeah. It wasn't a very subtle kind of role, was it? He hadn't maybe been cast. What I've noticed is every time you suggest something to Darren, he goes, yeah, yeah, sure,

I'll do that. Sure. Yeah. I'm just being polite. Yeah. No, he's going to do it all. The chicken idea was like, yeah, great. Okay. Good James. I haven't suggested to someone so many things before that they should do, but I just think it's good.

If I can influence Darren Brown, then I'm the ultimate influencer. So I just keep on saying you should do this, Darren. Yeah. And if he does, Darren's just going to keep going. Yeah, sure. And then he's not going to do any of it. Yeah. Well, that's like a tip for anyone in your audience now who you try and influence. They just know all they have to do is say, yeah, sure to him. And he can't control me. Yeah, well that's like a tip for anyone in your audience now who you try to influence they just know all they have to do is say yeah sure to him and you can't control me. Yeah sure Devin. I'm tempted to bring out the chicken just as a little niche. Yeah. Where would that get the biggest laugh in the country if I brought out Satan Chicken? I mean most audiences are gonna laugh at that. It's not, they're not made of stone that's funny. But I mean where would they know you and get the reference to this? That's most like-

Kettering you're doing? Kettering, yeah. Anywhere around Northamptonshire. Okay. Yeah, they're most likely gonna know. And then you follow up by saying, we all remember what it was like before the Odeon opened. Yes.

And the roof will come off. Big laugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life.

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flow. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Dream main course. Dream main course. Right now, I feel very strongly about this, meatballs. Meatballs. So, again, we're in my home and if there's a thing I'm really disliked, I'm trying to make it begin with a P, but it doesn't, is in restaurants is the whole, the tasting menu thing. I really, and that's the opposite in my mind of what a meal should, you know, be. And I like to kind of be with friends and for it to feel social and easy and not like a, you know, like you're listening to a lecture course on two dots of sauce and a leaf. It's the pointing places again, isn't it? You don't want the people pointing at

the food. Yeah, it's annoying. It kills the vibe and you know, it's just like, you don't listen to the origin story of what you know, it's just got a taste of more grass. So I do the opposite of that. So this is in my home and I've got my friends over and I've sort of, I won't name my friends because it'll be upsetting to the friends I haven't invited. Yes, but they know if they've not been invited. Oh, they'd never know. They'd never know what happened. I'd be very, very careful about that.

The only thing the restaurant aspect of this is providing is a round table. I've always, I love the people sitting around a round table. I don't have one. Can't really fit a round table in the kitchen at home. Doesn't quite work. So we've got a rectangular one, but then you're always a bit stuck out on the end. So it's a round table. And I don't know what this is. I don't know whether I saw somewhere between maybe it's in The Godfather or maybe it's in a Woody Allen film and there's just some people and they're in a restaurant and they're making, there's meatballs and tomato sauce

and spaghetti, it's that Italian American thing. And they're just like, it's the passing around the table and the chat and everyone's talking over each other. And I don't know if that only happens on TV and in films, but that's the thing for me. Like it's comfort food and it's that social experience and everything that's the opposite of a fucking tasting menu. So we're having that. And I learned to cook a bit out in Italy, once in Florence and then again in Ravello on the Amalfi Coast. There's

a great woman there called Mama Agata who teaches Italian cooking, which I love more than anything. And I first made meatballs there and then I've sort of, which is a kind of Neapolitan way of doing them, which is a bit different. And now how I do them is with again, sort of a bit of fennel and a bit of chili and garlic. There's a bit of a running theme, bringing everything together. And your milky bread, do you know this?

You ever made meatballs? No. So you soak stale bread in milk and then you kind of take the crust off, you mix it up with beef and pork, mince your herbs and a bit of garlic, no onions, egg to bind and parmesan, I think a parsley, I guess. And you mix all that up and you need to deep fry those. You make them into little meatballs and you roll them in flour. Then really you want to deep fry them. And then meanwhile, you're making your tomato sauce with your tomatoes and olive oil. And I'd go maybe like capers and anchovies and a bit of olives and stuff in there. In fact,

actually I think to be more accurate with this, it's the perfect meatballs that I don't ever think exist. There's always something disappointing when you order. Sometimes you do fancy meatball, they're never that nice, they're a bit bland, or it's just not quite, but it's the idea of the perfect meatballs in the tomato sauce. Maybe not spaghetti, but like the thicker spaghetti's like bucatini or spaghetti or what's it called? Pici that you can make with it's just semolina and water that you roll them out by hand.

But then you don't get the starchy water that you get from the sort of dried spaghetti, which I think you need in the sauce. But so good spaghetti and really just there's something that's always missing. I don't know what it is, but it's a perfect meatball out there. And this is the dream restaurant. It would be absolutely, it would be the perfect meatball that has that. There's nothing missing for me. I've thought about these perfect meatballs so much since first listening to your podcast.

Size is a difficult thing with meatballs, I think. It is. Rarely the perfect size. Yeah. Golf balls are too big. I think actually they're kind of pulpedite, the actual, I think they're only like a cherry size and normally you'd have them just on their own without any tomato sauce. That's very much an American thing.

But I think it's one of the few things maybe the Americans really got right when it came to bastardizing Italian food. And that's the whole spaghetti tomato thing. So yes, that, but I would go, yeah, a little bigger than a cherry. Slightly bigger than a cherry. Yeah. Big cherry size. Big cherry strawberry.

Yeah. Strawberries are slightly bigger than cherries. But not the shape of a strawberry. No, no, that would be mad. No, it's just an idiot. But yeah, nice round strawberry sized round. I don't think you mean about chasing the perfect one though, because I think as English people, meatballs,

spaghetti meatballs specifically, are one of the things that we see drawn before we eat. Like before I'd ever had spaghetti and meatballs, I'd seen it drawn in cartoons and it looked delicious. You say that, this little cartoon circle just next to your head on the wall behind you. That does look a bit- I'd add a little.

How do you do that stuff? There is a little, yeah, but they look like spaghetti and meatballs right there. Yeah, a little fusillanac. Darren, stop. But I think you see it in those cartoons, look delicious in the beano or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or like laying in the tramp or, you know. With all those forks stuck in them. It's kind of cartoon for, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So then trying to, and we're singing songs about them as well. We're singing songs about my meatball rolled away and all that all covered in cheese. Cause somebody sneezed. It lost me there. On top of spaghetti.

Oh, covered in cheese. How would Christopher Walken have sung that? I laughed my pot meatball. Somebody sneaked. I thought you meant the rude song you sing at school. Here we go. I don't know this. Do you not remember spaghetti and meatballs and a banana? Do you not remember that?

No, I've never heard that before. I just pointed out his penis for the listening. It's a rude version of La Bamba. Spaghetti and meatballs and a banana. Do you not remember that? I've never heard that before. I just pointed out its penis for the it's a rude version of labamba spaghetti and meatballs and a banana and the meatballs are the balls. Yes we know the spaghetti is the pubes. Whoa whoa whoa watch the banana. I believe leaving the headline until last it's it's the it's the penis. I thought that's what you meant. But my point is, spaghetti and meatballs were a big part of your life as a kid before you've even tried it. I think so.

Before you've even eaten it. So you've got this thing in your head. So it might be impossible because a lot of the time with food and drink, we're chasing the first time we had them or whatever, or the best time we had them with this, we're chasing like what it conjured up in us when we saw these drawings and the film or Godfather or whatever it was. There's a whole thing that comes with it, which is why you need a dream restaurant to make it happen. I don't even quite know what it would be that would make them the perfect meatball. I suppose

they would have a bit of a maybe a bit of a crunch to the outside maybe and then maybe the sauce would just be really rich and not just like an apologetic tino tomato. It'd actually have a real something to it. I think it is about the atmosphere as well, right? You described passing it over or someone's dishing it up and it's just not fussy, is it? It's just like warming and homely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My partner has a habit of serving by the time I've sat down, he's served the everything out and put it on plates, which to me is, I'd never say anything directly. I might say it in the podcast that he might listen to in the car. But it, it slightly kills that part of the process, which I think, I think is important. And also when you see it in,

you know, films and stuff, the sauce is always sat atop the spaghetti, which I think is kind of wrong because you want to mix the spaghetti in with the sauce for that starchy goodness to thicken the sauce and the rest of it. So that's, but I guess it just doesn't look as good if you're designing or directing that film. You want it to be a bit messy as well, don't you? You want it to... Yeah, you want, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, get involved.

Tuck it, are you tucking a napkin into the collar? Ooh, I should totally do that. You should do that. Yeah, yeah. If you Yeah, get involved tuck it. Are you tucking a napkin into the into the collar? Oh, I should totally do that You should do that having spaghetti and me kitchen roll in our house Yeah, so it might you know, I might like bend up a bit. Yeah But expensive kitchen roll like, you know, yeah nice stuff that really absorbs. Yeah bouncy. I was thinking Regina Blitz, but Regina blitz. Yeah, that's the thing. Isn't that a drag queen? Brilliant. Thank you.

That's what even reminded me as well. I forgot about this until you started talking about it, but like I used to work in a school as classroom assistant and there was like an annex center where the kids who couldn't be in the main school would go to school. There's only about three of them in it and that would all be like one-on-one with different classroom assistants. Yeah. There was a kid from my class was sent there. So we'd take it in turns to go there like

once or twice a week. And me and him were given the job one day of cooking for everyone. And I learned how to make meatloaf from Jamie Oliver's cookbook. And he suggested that we'd made that into spaghetti and meatballs and have it with spaghetti and do that. We did that for everyone. And it was a really nice communal thing. And that was a very nice memory that I'd half forgotten about until now. Yeah. I was really, really fussy when I was a kid. I barely ate anything. I was so proper fussy eater. And then when I, when I was at uni, I was in the back of a car starving and some people I was with, they went out and got a pizza and called from the shop, do you

want sausage on it? And I said, yes, thinking that meant sausage. And of course it meant salami, and salami was an absolute no-no, but when it, I was so hungry, but when it came, it was all like, you know, mixed into the cheese and everything, so I couldn't pull the salami out. So I kind of thought, all right,

I'll just have to trick myself that I like salami. So I did this thing of, as I was eating it, I, not out loud, but in my head, I was going, mm, mm, mm, I'm doing that. And not giving myself a moment to go, hang on, where's the salami taste? I don't like, where is it, but in my head I was going, mmm, mmm, mmm, and doing that and not giving myself a moment to go hang on, where's the slimy taste, I don't like, where is it, where is it, there it is, I don't like it. And it worked and I ate it, it was lovely. And then I started doing it with everything and I just wiped out all these things I didn't

like by just doing this, by going, mmm, in my head. The only thing it left was mushrooms and blue cheese, which I can't stand. You Darren Browned yourself. I Darren Browned myself at a young age. Are you aware that that's like a sanguine? You know it's a verb. You know your name's a verb, right? I have, yeah. I use it without even realising the irony. I just Darren Browned that. Me and James watched someone try and Darren Brown someone else out of hating a food,

do you remember? Oh my God god it was the best, yeah. Fracking hell. Yeah I do remember. What happened? It was when we were doing Celebrity Hunted and it was before we started filming we were all just hanging out in Shrewsbury prison was where we started. We had like two days in Shrewsbury prison for them to just shoot like five seconds of us escaping from the prison But it was such a great two days. So we were with the speakman's I don't know if you know the speakman's work with their like therapists

But they do a lot of work with people around that sort of stuff and they're on this morning quite a lot There's a very funny video of them speaking to woman who throws up every time she thinks about custard But we were also with Bobby Siegel, who was on a university challenge. Yes. And he, he didn't like Marmite. So they went, right Bobby? Also for context as well, Bobby Siegel is the most positive person you've ever met. He's actively trying to be positive about everything. Right. And would never in a million years if someone was doing any sort of like mentalism on him or hypnosis ever admit if it wasn't working. Okay. He wants, he's a people pleaser. Yeah. Okay. So it was perfect. We watched him go through all of these exercises. They set

up with Marmite of him getting like, now imagine I've got my Marmite here, Bobby, what are you going to do? Move closer to the Marmite, closer to the Marmite. And then he was imagining eating the Marmite. Is that, and what do you feel about Marmite now, Bobby? And he went, yeah, I like it actually. You could tell, total bullshit. A bit of an enthusiast going, it's good, isn't it Bobby? You like it Bobby? And did they then get him to try it for real? The next morning at breakfast, they got him to try some Marmite. It was like, nice, nice. Yeah. And they walked away from the table. You could just see him like absolutely gutted

that he'd eaten Marmite. He was eating it on its own Like, yeah, pot. And he was putting his finger in and just into his mouth. So much. Even people who love Marmite wouldn't do that. I love Marmite. Even like a tiny bit of it on its own. I have a real like it really makes me rich. You want to hang out with the speakman. I think what they did with him and then maybe you can vouch vouch if this would work. So they, they were basically said, think of a food you love. Yes. And we're putting that over here. So they like gesture it's over in this part of the room. And as we move this pot of Marmite closer to that, how do you feel about it? Yeah. And then eat the Marmite. That was what I remember it being. That's your NLP stuff going on. Right, yeah. I think there's, I remember I cured someone of a cat allergy like that and using a sort of similar thing. Just really curious to see if it would work.

And I say cured, but it was sort of like, it definitely worked there and then. Like, because when he was talking about cats before he was even just talking about and thinking about them, it was making him sneeze and everything. And then he didn't afterwards. So there's that. Okay. You've created like, but that's not a real cat yet. It's just how you feel differently. And then apparently he was better with the cats, but I think it didn't really last like, you know, after a few weeks, a couple of months, whatever, he was back to where he was. So really, yeah, hard to, hard to say, but does it, does have, it kind of some effect.

We felt Bobby Seagull was just being polite. I think always just being polite. What you do is go, mmm. Yeah, I think when he was actively making those noises, so maybe it did help a little bit him doing that. I find Marmite and mint sauce is the other thing that I love, but I can't have it on its own. Just a thing, try it, it's just something.

It's rare that you're in a situation where you might end up having a Marmite or mint sauce by itself. But you're gonna do it once if you like both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's rare. It's rare that you're in a situation where you might end up having a Marmite or mint sauce by itself. But you're going to do it once if you like both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. There was a salad in the pub that I used to work in, this chain pub, that was just basically,

I mean, I can't remember any of the other ingredients, but there weren't many other ingredients, basically just mint sauce and red onions. I got hooked on it one day. I couldn't stop eating it. Just this. We just had to. It certainly explains your breath. Yeah. I'll stink for the listener. I'll stink.

Your dream side dish. It's not terribly interesting, but I just thought I like a nice, like a rocket salad with the meatballs, you know, I'm sure there are better side dishes in the world, but if you're having this rocket salad with some of that parmesan and perhaps a nice balsamic, nice olive oil, that would be very nice. This is a very coherent menu. It's a little too carby, I suppose, risotto followed by pasta. Yeah, but people would, like I would do that at an Italian restaurant. Yeah, because you're like, you're there to enjoy it and you want to get stuck in. Yeah. I suppose they'd appear at the risotto and the pasta

would probably appear on the same preemie platy course, wouldn't they? Yeah. But you're the customer, right? Exactly. Yeah. So this is a very nice, simple salad. Nice simple salad. Yeah. I think you, it could be a bowl of rice, mashed potato, I guess that's what calms him. But no, it's just, yeah. Nice little wild rocket. Quite nice. Grew my own rocket for a little while and it was delicious. And then never returned to that. Were you making salads pretty regular? Did you overdo it? Had a lot of rocket to use. And getting good good parmesan. I'd probably just end up eating the parmesan on its own. It's nothing like that. That and a good, good bottle of

red. In the first episode of chef's table, that series where, and I've forgotten the name of the chef, Massimo, but like, he tells the story of when they saved all the, Yeah, all of the rounds. It was the broken by, by promoting the idea of cooking with broken Parmesan, wasn't it? Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And they do do the tapping, what it should sound like when you tap on it. And that stuck with me a lot. Like that kind of like, the sound of that sounds delicious. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.

On a wheel? Or does it, doesn't work with a wedge? No, yeah. That's like a woodblocker. You can't go around the supermarket like just tapping on all the wedges. Yeah. You've done the avocado. Tap on the chin. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Tap it on the wheel.

And what is the sound? Is it like a dead heavy sound or is it like a hollow? It's like a, yeah, it is dead, I guess, but then there's like a bit of a hollow sound to it as well. So like, yeah, you get that kind of like, like a dampened drum or something. And when you hear something, when you hear something knocked back, you know, it's ready. Knocked back. Yeah. Yeah. Knock from you know, it's ready. Knocked back, yeah. Yeah.

Knock from the inside. I'm ready. It's the cheese knocking back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the cheese knocking back. Three of diamonds. Four years this has taken. Here we go.

That would be gutting. If you, what's the longest you've spent on a trick for it not to work? Good question. I think that's a good question, right? I remember being on stage on Broadway and I'd messed up a trick at the beginning and it was like, it was quite a long trick. I'd be like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm's a good question. I think that's a good question, right? I remember being on stage on Broadway and I'd messed up a trick at the beginning and it was like, it was quite a long trick. I was in like, you know, 15, 20 minutes, quite a long time to spend on one thing on stage with four climaxes that were going to, and I just knew none of them were going to work.

And that felt like, and that felt like the longest time I'd spent on a trick for it not to work. And I made the same mistake the night after and the same mistake the next day. But by the end of it, I'd learned that people didn't mind. It's a weird thing. Like, you know, mess something up. It's sort of okay. But, um... Do people almost want to see you mess at least one thing up? So... Yeah, I think I have to. And if a show's gone too smoothly, I will mess something up on purpose. Otherwise, it's like a jugger dropping a ball. I guess you have to.

I remember I did a show once and I couldn't get the, neither me or the person on stage couldn't get the lid off the marker. And then I could hear backstage running around trying to get another, trying to get another one. There weren't any other markers. And it was in there. It got reviewed that night. And it was like this really lovely human moment. I guess they thought I'd been doing it on purpose. So I do it sometimes on purpose, because actually now people aren't looking at what you're doing or thinking about other stuff if they're watching somebody struggle to get a pen off, marker off, lid off a marker.

But yeah, failure is an important thing, thank God. And people need something to compare it to, right? Yeah, sure. They need to, the really good stuff seems really good if they can see what happens when it goes wrong. If they can see what happens, yeah. So the amount of time you must spend, there was one where you get a, Darren's not going to remember this at all.

Oh, another one. I forgot. Remember this. There's one where, uh, it's when you get to bet on the horses and, uh, and you said that you'd done it. So it's the, for people haven't seen it, it's like a series of every time you tell them to bet on a horse that wins. Yes, and then they win massive at the end. Yeah.

And then- You slightly killed the surprise for anybody watching it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Too late to say that? It's a fairly linear plot.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you want me to say? That I expect that spoils it even more. But like- Oh yeah, how it worked. Yeah. So the way you've done it is you've done it with a series of people and it's really, it's not like, it's just that if you do it enough times, it will eventually

happen like that. And then that person will think that this amazing trick has been done with that or something. Yeah. How long are you spending on that? Doing it with all the dough? Oh yeah, yeah. So that took a very long time. So yeah, it all started with the idea that, you know, if you'd get every week, you'd get

a thing in your email saying this horse is going to win like in two days time. And then you perhaps the first time you're like, really? And then you don't even think about it. And then you realize it has. And then you get it another result the next week. And you actually maybe this time you actually watch the race and it does win and does it again. It does win.

And then when it gets to the fourth one or the fifth one, it's like, would you want to buy the system? It's expensive, but you're going to do this whenever you like. And yet you just start with enough people and the one in six that get happen to get the winning horse, the winning prediction, because you've obviously divided that big group into six and given each group a different prediction. So you take that group of six, which if you start with enough people, it's still a big group of people. And then you split them into six for the next race and them into six for the next race. And so there'll

be one person by the end of it, which we had, who had just got a series of like impossibly, you know, impossible predictions. And, um, and sure enough, she was willing to put her life savings up to buy this system. And then we told her after she'd given us the money, here's how it all works. Let's, let's see. Oh no, there was a twist at the end. I won't say just in case anyone still wants to watch it. People have to watch it.

Your dream drink, Darren Brown. Dream? Well, I'm going for a bottle of, well, it all starts with the Parmesan, I suppose. So a nice San Gervaisy, maybe a Brunello di Montalcino, which is probably my favorite red. I'm not drinking a lot with it, but just like, yeah. I probably just like a glass and a half. Very specific. Wow. Yeah. Are you, why the half glass there? I like to drink exactly the same amount

as milk goes into a Cadbury's Flake. That's, that's, and then I stop. It's a very good system now. Not enough people stick to the Flake system. It's like a Martini afterwards, and I just stopped. It's a very good system now. Not enough people stick to the... It's an example of a martini afterwards. And I just can't do a martini if I've had more than like maybe a glass and a half. Yeah. That's why I start with a martini and then I think I can carry on. Do you start? Okay.

I start with a martini. Yeah. I think it's a nice digestive after it opens you up a little bit. I think if I got to the end of the night, I'd be like, no, there's no way I can have a martini now. I'm going to absolutely lose my mind. I quite like a Tommy's Margarita to start things off. Oh yeah. Tommy's Margarita.

No. So Tommy's Margarita is, there's no triple sec or other alcohol in it. It is just tequila and a good 100% agave tequila, not the horrible stuff, and lime and agave. And I was friendly with, remember Kenny Everett? Yes. Yeah. Remember Cleo Roccas who was Kenny Everett's sidekick, redheaded bombshell. So she's a good friend and she has a tequila brand of her own called Aquareva. And that got me,

this before tequila became a huge thing, She was very much at the forefront of this kind of big tequila revival and she was obviously very passionate about the drink and got me quite passionate about it too. It is a magic drink. You know, there's no hangover if you don't, as I'm sure you know, if you don't, as long as you stay hydrated and you don't mix it with any other drinks. So the nice thing about a Tommy's Margarita is because there's no other alcohol in it. You really can just drink this drink all night and you will feel fine. If slightly held, like I'm holding my head in my own hands now, there's a slight, I've done this, I have drunk them all day once and the next morning everything's fine but maybe it's a bit like everything's been taken away and replaced with identical

things. There's something slightly off, you can't put your finger on it, but there's no bad feelings. Maybe it's a bit like everything's been taken away and replaced with identical. You can't put your finger on it, but you don't, there's no bad feelings. Yeah. I think I prefer a traditional hangover. You've not got the Tommy's Margarita on your menu yet. Do you want that as you come into the, into the meal before the meal welcoming? Yeah. Welcome drink. Welcome.

Yeah. Whether welcome and is it. And then you're moving onto the, the red wine. Moving onto the, onto the Par. It could be a welcoming, yeah, a welcome drink. A welcome day with a welcome, and is a welcome. And then you're moving on to the red wine. Moving on to the, onto the Parmesan, the red wine. So this is a very Italian menu. If you spent a lot of time in Italy, do you remember the first time you had these Italian wines

that you thought this is my jam? I don't know, I don't know a huge amount about wine, but as with anything like that, it's like if you can have one little area or one little part of it, and then it makes it feel a bit more manageable. I remember having Brunello on the holiday in Tuscany somewhere and loving it. Going, that's it. That's what I like. That's my one. That's it. Yeah. And then there's a, then you from that, I guess you sort of build out

and go, I quite like that too. Now I can't remember the difference. I don't know which one I'm drinking, but there's, yeah. So that's definitely my whiny home. And then yeah, I cook Italian food all the time. I love pasta. I would have pasta all the time. And I can. You literally can. You're Don Brown. Exactly. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest.

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Stay in the know. CBC News. We arrive at your dream dessert. Very exciting. Yeah, already? Yeah, has it gone quickly? It has gone quickly, yeah. You have no idea how many other tricks and specials of yours I've held back on asking about so I've done quite well.

Yeah, I really appreciate it. Do you ever worry about people that you've done stuff on? Do you ever go, I hope that guy's alright or I've got to push the guy off the building? Well, there's so few of them that it's easy to keep in touch and maintain a friendship with them. So that's what's happened. So like in the last one, I was a few years ago now, on Netflix and Channel 4 called Sacrifice. I remember the guy laying down his life for an illegal Mexican immigrant, but he himself

was very much anti all of that immigration stuff. So it was whether he could be changed. And he, yeah, so he came over, I flew him over to watch the show and watch it because it's all very weird when you, it's not just, it's not just your experience of going through it. And we knew that would be fine for him. And there's a, you know, there's obviously take care of people, but then there's actually seeing your experience then rendered as a TV show with, you know, music and closeups and bits edited out. That might have meant a lot to you, but just don't make the final carton song. So he came over and watched it. And then we watched it again with Martin Freeman because he was a big fan of Martin. I wanted to...

Couldn't lift the remote. Couldn't lift it, yeah. I'm not sure. He was a big fan of Martin Freeman. Couldn't hit the remote. I didn't expect him to come up twice. Because he was a big fan of Martin Freeman, and Martin was a friend, and I wanted him to feel, you know, sort of proud of it and enjoy it. And then we watched it again with the other guys that had done the other shows like that, that I'd done, that had all been through these similar journeys, so you could feel like part of a very niche group, army, I think of them as an army.

I would like to see that as a special, actually. All those guys living in a house together. We've been through different things. One of them fought zombies for real. He's walking around. Waiting for the signal to attack. Just all of them in a house constantly paranoid that it's another, something else is happening, but it's just. I do get occasionally emails from people that think they are part of a show. And in the middle of, there was one we did called Remote Control.

It was like a big game show thing and the audience are in masks. And it's they're making decisions about whether good or bad things happen to somebody who's out being secretly filmed. And there was a runner on that show who was in one of the sort of, you know, secret filming units over the road from the pub where this guy is and all this stuff's happening to him. And you know, runners are very important characters in a crew, keeping everything, taking over. And he just totally freaked out that the whole thing was about him. And he literally ran down the street screaming he totally lost his shit and ran down the street in the middle of a live thing screaming I mean I get the impulse yeah yeah I completely

understand yet something even more embarrassing when someone has to go it's not it's not and you might be a narcissist yeah your total main main characters literally main character syndrome, literally main character syndrome. It's hard, isn't it? The other one that comes to mind is on Apocalypse that you mentioned during the nighttime sequences. So I obviously, I have to go and sleep. But we felt like somebody should, if Stephen, our guy in it, at all like freaked out in the middle of the night, like if it was me watching, I would get in there, hypnotize him and make sure sure everything was fine. And even that meant, you know, the whole shout to go down the toilet wouldn't matter. But basically, there's always that thing I can run in and sort it out if I need to, if it all goes horribly wrong. But I needed sleep, so I would sleep and he would sleep.

But we had a backup hypnotist, just in case he was doing a night shift, and was just watching Stephen sleep, just in case anything like that happened. And I won't mention his name, I normally don't, I won't embarrass him, but he needed to go to the loo. So he said, do you mind if I near the loo? And of course it's fine, like nothing's happening. So I said, yeah, yeah, there's actually just, well the nearest one is actually within the sort of filmed area, so you know, be quiet, but it's within this sort of like bunker that Stephen's in. but there was like, there was a portaloo somewhere so I just, I best just use that. So off he goes to use the loo. And then there was something

that they were going to do a very quiet rehearsal of a zombie crowd scene that was going to happen the next morning. So back up hip resists in the toilet. Then there's like, okay, do you mind? Sorry, just stay in there for a bit because we just got to rehearse. Don't come out. And there's like a load of silent zombies sort of pretending to shake the thing that the fences and they kind of run through their bit. And no one tells backup hypnotist in the toilet that he can come out the end of it. So he just, he knows it's there to do a job. So he just sort of sleeps, I think in the portal loop. Certainly there for a very, very long time. So there are entire sequences of that show where there's a backup

hypnotist trapped in the portal loop. You'll see his outline if you look carefully. Just leant against the wall, sleeping. That way you should just film that and made that a different show. So yeah, your dream dessert, Darren. Okay. Well, I tell you at home what it is. And what I was going to say for reasons of honesty and transparency is a single Charbonnelle a Walker salted caramel truffle. So I love it because normally I'm full, right?

I make these carby things. I can't have, I can't do a pudding on top of that. So they're on the mantelpiece in the front room. I get the big pots, because again, the big ones. And they're all in their little, you know, little frilly things. And I take it and I normally try to, there's no one around and I sit down and I'm very mindful. They're lovely. I'm very mindful about enjoying this one chocolate. However, given it's a dream restaurant, I figured something could happen whereby you'd lose some of the fullness and general gastric discomfort at this point.

And you'd open up a bit of space for a nice pudding. Otherwise it's a bit pointless. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go apple crumble. Must be a popular choice. Yeah, pretty popular. It comes up. Yeah. Not normally after risotto and spaghetti. No, I mean, this is it. It's not practical. No, but we're employing the genie's powers here. You're not feeling full.

You're ready for apple crumble. Exactly, yeah. Hearty. Might even put a little chardonnay walk on top. Yeah, we'll give you the chardonnay. You're having that afterwards because you described it so nicely. No, you're absolutely right, James.

You absolutely should have that. You're absolutely right. You've got to have it on its own afterwards. But the crumble is. Yeah. Apple crumble and sometimes blackberries in there too. Oats. I sort of, I do oats. My mom's always like, have you put oats in there?

Okay. She's not sure about the oats. Her way of doing it. Oats I think are a little out there. It's a bit new school though. Yeah. A bit new school. But I quite like them. I think a little out there. It's a bit new school. I quite

like them. I think I quite like the oats. So yeah, nothing particularly imagined it with the apple crumble, but it's just, again, it's just all, it's called comfort food for me. Risotto is big comfort food as well, isn't it? It's all red wine. It's all about that. And again, bring it out and maybe with ice cream, but probably with custard. Hot or cold custard? Oh, no hot custard. Don't, yeah yeah don't do that. Do people have cold custard? We both like on a hot dessert cold custard. Really? We both like it. Yeah but it's the same you say you might have ice cream that's basically just very cold custard isn't it? It is but I'd rather go custard over ice cream. I do like an ice cream. My other

option would have been vanilla ice cream with Swiss roll, chocolate Swiss roll. When you're a kid, you do that. So a bit like essentially a deconstructed Arctic roll, which we all had, I'm sure. Or Jo, we can tell you, because you have chosen the apple crumble. Every episode there's a secret ingredient. If a guest chooses it, they get kicked out. Have I mentioned it? Sort of. Mini rolls for you. We chose that because of a trick you did with mini roles I was doing my best I think that was that was dangerously close to it okay and I won't you're

allowed to mention it it's fine yeah you're like something about chocolate you haven't chose chose it so we're fine yeah okay but like um but if you chose it as your close but no chocolate yeah yeah because the swiss role is not a mini roll is not the same as a Swiss roll. Well, we would have to have that debate. Yeah. If a mini roll is the same as a Swiss roll. What happens if somebody says it? Do you just cut it dead?

Get out. That's it. We say that you're not getting any of your food that you ordered. You're not getting any of it in the dream. It's only happened once. It's only happened once. And then we read them their menu out, tell them it's going all, it's all going in the bin.

And you'd be surprised at how badly it gets received by the person. They're still pretty angry at their meal. Even though it's a completely imaginary menu, they're livid that they don't get it. He's so disappointed. So upset. I'm very disappointed by it. Okay. For you, it was Mini Rolls because of the League of Gentlemen thing you did.

Yes. I will say that. Yeah. That Mini Rolls thing is the only thing that I'm going to just straight up ask Gentlemen thing you did. Yes. I will say though, that mini-rolls thing is the only thing that I'm gonna just straight up ask you how you did it. I know you're not gonna tell us. I know it's a waste of time. I know that magicians and ventrilists and everyone get asked this all the time,

but it's been bothering me ever since I saw it. It was probably over a decade ago. I would like you to just tell us how you did it, please. One martini. I won't tell you anything. But it's a razor blade in a chocolate roll, isn't it? you to just tell us how you did it please. One more teeny. I'll tell you anything. It's a razor blade in a chocolate roll. And there's a whole bunch of other things beforehand of like they sit down on chairs and you mix some envelopes up and they open the envelopes it

says what colour chair they're going to sit on and they reach under their chair and they've all got the colour that corresponds to that. There's a whole bunch of different things that have to all be in place. It's tiny men in the table. It's the ones that escaped from pay. I mean, that is, I think about it a lot. I think I don't know. I genuinely cannot remember. I do occasionally watch those things back. I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. So if you watch them back and go, that was good.

I saw it. Well, not quite as sadly as that sounds, but occasionally I'll just watch it because someone will be talking about it. I haven't seen that for a long time. I'll find it. Or just so it'll come up on my computer or something. I'll just find myself watching it. I haven't got a clue. But that's how you know it's a good trick, right? You've even tricked yourself in the future. I've even tricked myself. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea.

Trick yourself in the future. Are you going to add any more to that too? There's an idea. Uh huh. Trick yourself in the future. Yeah. Are you going to add any words to that? Two hours of me watching a chicken. Well yeah, just get the balls on it. Trick yourself in the future. Do a load of things, record them, then you sit down and you're the person it's happening to and by then you've forgotten about it.

Yeah. And do it that you just trick yourself. You're like, fucking hell. So the audience are watching me do tricks on myself. Like I had no idea. Watching you react to the video. Of course they will all think you're just pretending to be tricked. But you will know. Can they see what's on the video or are they just watching my reaction? They can see what's on the video. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Is this how you

normally write shows? Someone comes in and says just a completely random idea and then goes, just getting the ball rolling. So Andy Niman does it. Just get the ball rolling. Just trick yourself in the future. Things like that. Please that. Yeah, so weird thing with that. People, people do say things and then like you have to stop them because sometimes it does lead to half a thought or you've had a similar thought. And then they're like, well, I gave you that idea. We were like, no, you didn't. That was a rotation chicken. That was something else.

But yes, the idea of rotation is something that we, yeah, it does, yeah, this happens quite a lot. The chicken's the headline of that idea, I think. If you change it from chicken, I think it's no longer James Bond. It's a turkey. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. And to be honest, if it's not, if the chicken's not rotating, I'm not going to think it's me. If you just got chickens knocking about, I'm not going to go that with me. It's only

if it's a rotisserie chicken being used to put someone into a trance. Yeah. And then they're on the rotisserie at the end. But then even then I'm not going to like get annoyed. I didn't get credit. I'll just know in my heart. Yeah. There's an inner satisfaction, isn't there? That's enough. That is enough. I'll be really happy with that. It's about time a hypnotist used the idea of a chicken, right? It is about time. We've never seen that before. But it's the opposite. Would you draw like a spiral, she or they draw like a spiral on the, where the head's been removed because that could be the center of the spiral. the where the head's been removed because

that could be the center of the spiral and then the spiral sort of works its way out yeah on that plane that sort of front end of the chicken so if you're sat in front and your view isn't obscured by the drumsticks yeah yeah I think so be more powerful in it and also like if the if the audience can't see that spiral yeah it adds to it right because they just hit the type by the chicken. Yeah. But actually there's a spiral on the neck. And I don't know, but I guess a biro would work, would write very satisfyingly on the front of it.

Yeah, yeah. When you're doing that spiral. It would feel good to write on the neck of a chicken with a biro. You wouldn't, sorry, just to say, you wouldn't need to draw a circle. You could hold the biro still and let the rotisserie smith do the work for you.

Very satisfying. This is going to be a weird show, your next show. I don't think that's weird at all. Let someone hold a biro on a chicken neck and then it rotates and you draw on it. They've got to slowly move the pen to one side, slowly to the left. All right, I'm in. You're in. Yes, Martini is in.

We follow, we've definitely, we finished with an extra dry, painfully, brutally dry vodka, Martini, I'd probably go, um, maybe Connick's tail with a twist. With a twist. Yeah. We're not getting dirty. Twist is chocolate truffle. If anyone's seen Darren Brown, he always says always ends with a twist. I was too excited to say that, but I think that was very good to say that

even Darren Brown's menu ends with a twist. And then if you just said that, great. Read your menu back to you now so you can feel about it. Those might as well be mindful. Okay, go. A Tommy's Margarita when you arrive. You would like still water, not too cold, nothing in it, no plops. Problems of bread, you would like sourdough, warm with butter and salt.

Then some parmesan and red wine on the table. For starter, you would like a lobster risotto.otto Main course perfect meatballs in tomato sauce with a thick spaghetti Side dish of rocket salad with parmesan balsamic olive oil drink you would like a glass and a half of Brunella de Montellino Dessert you would like an apple crumble hot with hot custard and then dessert, you would like an apple crumble hot with hot custard and then a Charbonneur, a walker, salted caramel truffle. Add an extra dry vodka martini.

Did you say the crumble? Yes. Yeah. So thinking about, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I hypnotized you and you forgot that I said the crumble. It worked. That's, that's amazing.

Even hearing you say it back. Yeah. As beautifully as you did. Uh, it's yeah, that's gorgeous. Well now. That's amazing. Hearing you say it back, as beautiful as you did, yeah, that's gorgeous. Well now, you've heard that. Please, now confirm to the listener that envelope hasn't left you. This has been in front of me all the time. If this contains my menu choices, there's no explanation. You've had it there and you've signed it over the thing. If you could open it and just read to the listener what it says inside. In here, it says prediction on the front of it. I removed a sheet of paper. Yes, here we go. I'm removing it. It says Darren's menu. Here we go. Water, olive oil. That was all, we got that one wrong. That's wrong. But you always get one wrong. You've got to get one wrong at the top.

I did have a moment there thinking, oh my God, this is actually going to be a big issue. You always get the first one wrong. Uh, yeah, yeah. Failure. Yeah. Yeah. Dropping a bull. All right. Papa Dom's or bread. You put egg McMuffin in a cigarette. Always get the second one wrong. Always get the second one wrong. Starter clams, Always get the second one wrong. Starter clams, main, candy floss, flumbade. Well, okay. Not far off. You're not far off. Side, spaghetti, hoops, boiling hot. Nearly.

Like lava. Nearly. I had it like lava. Spaghetti hoops is close. Drink an ice cold beer, dessert, nothing. We ran out of room. We ran out of page. We didn't really space out the menu enough and we ran out of space. We ran out of space. We didn't really space out the menu enough and we ran out of space. We had to just leave it dessert.

This is a... I'm framing this. Yeah. We've got spaghetti. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, in a sense they're all correct. You've got the spaghetti hoops and spaghetti hoops are circles like meatballs. Yeah. A nice cold beer in a sense. Candy floss, comfort food. Yeah. Clams.

Well, I mean, clams are by the sea. Pompeys by the sea. Yeah. They probably were feasting on clams when it all struck. We talked about all of this. All of it was in the salad. Yeah. Egg muffin.

And a cigarette. That's my favourite that you peaked early. That one is wrong and olive oil was correct. That's what I said. Pretty good. Phenomenal. Pretty good. You just got Devon Browned. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. It's been a dream. Thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant, Darren. It's been a dream, thank you.

James, you embarrassed me in that interview. What? You're a little nerd. I've never seen you nerd out so hard. I just know stuff. I like knowledge. Yes, you were very excited to meet Darren. So was I.

Lovely chat to Darren. What a nice man. What a great man you are. A lot more stuff I could have said. Yes, I know. So many episodes and questions I to Darren. What a nice man. What a great menu. A lot more stuff I could have said. Yes. I know. So many episodes and questions I've got. I'm well aware. I saw, I looked around at you during that interview and you were pinching your leg at some point.

Yes. Just to get myself to shut up. To stop yourself saying all the different shows he's done. Ask him about all the shows, James. Calm down. Yeah. Back off. You've got to prioritize. It was lovely to speak to Darren. I enjoyed his menu very much

And he didn't say mini rolls, although we were skirting a little bit close to it, weren't we? Yes He'd already established that Swiss roll was his backup dessert, but that he wasn't going to choose it So I thought we could let him know Mmm, because if he did say Swiss roll we would have had to have debated that. Yeah. And I guess ultimately mini rolls, the clue is in that it's a mini roll. It's a mini roll and it's chocolate and Swiss rolls are not traditionally chocolate. It is specific. So yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We've got to get off his back on that one. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. And also we predicted his entire meal. It's pretty impressive that we predicted his entire meal.

And we, Darren Brown, Darren Brown. There was a moment when he opened it where I thought. He might have done something to the envelope. He might have done something for us. Is he about to do something for us? Was he going to hold the envelope and tell us what we've written down before opening it? Yeah. Or he might reveal, if you listen back to the podcast.

Yeah. During every course, I actually said these things. Yes. If you listen back. I got it in there, didn't notice. That would blow my mind. That's how good he is. We're amazed by stuff he didn't do. Well done Darren. Tickets for Darren's new show Only Human are on sale now so get yourself along to that. I know we'll be going at some point. Yeah, absolutely. All of us for sure. I want to see that spinning chicken. In his show, Only Human. Yes. It's still time to change it, call it Only Chicken. That was of course the final episode of the series, but we will be back before you know it for Christmas specials, best ofs, all of that sort of stuff. Other than that,

we'll see you in the new year. Yes. No need to text me and ask me when those are though, mum. So that's the end of the series now. That's been established. You don't have to text me saying that you're annoyed about that. And then you don't have to just be like, where are these Christmas specials? Where's the compilation? They'll be at Christmas. They're all coming out.

We're giving you content, mum. He sounds very ungrateful to me, Di. I'm so sorry you have such a wretch of a son. Thank you so much to Darren for coming on the podcast. We will see you again soon. Bye bye! Goodbye! As a FIZ member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIZ, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply.

Details at FIZ.ca. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning.

Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now. Don't forget to give yourself some thanks by investing in your well-being.

BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world, connecting you to qualified professionals via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Hello, my name's Sarah Pascoe. Guess what? I've been on Off Menu a while back. Can't remember what I said. Vegan butter, I think. Anyway, I'm now going on tour with a new show. It's called I Am A Strange Gloop. The tour starts in June 2025. Come and join me. I might talk about food if that's what you need. Bread or Pappadoms. I'll shout. Stealing content

of Off Menu. I will probably talk about other things as well and I might not shout bread or poppadoms. Tickets are on sale now at sarapasco.co.uk.