Ep 272: Derren Brown

Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

And before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a non-profit co-founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister, and Georgia Takax.

Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects, including two seven-day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes, as well, feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day.

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time.

And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food, James.

Absolutely.

So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk or look at the links in Jen Brister's bio on Instagram.

Every penny raised goes to supporting people in Gaza.

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Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast, Peeling the Carrot of Conversation.

Ooh, carrots.

Just peeling the carrot.

Yeah, just raw carrot.

Having a raw carrot like Roba Popper.

Yeah.

It's the final episode of the series.

The final one, but not the final one ever, I predict.

God, no.

Days is a gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

This is the Off Menu Podcast.

And every single week, we're inviting a guest for our dream restaurant and asking them their favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish, and drink.

Not in that order.

And this week, I predict that our guest will be...

Darren 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 Acaster.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast.

We're excited uh to talk to our very special guest the wonderful darren brown treasure national treasure he's a national treasure um and you know we grew up watching darren brown yes and i think it was a similar feeling to when we had louis ferrew on if i remember them you know arriving on the scene yeah the tv scene yeah watching their early stuff and watching it right through to the modern day i feel like i've watched everything they've done.

Evolved amazingly as well.

Evolved.

Yeah.

Incredible live shows as well.

Yeah.

Very excited to have Darren on.

And Benito, this is, you know, 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.

Yeah.

And he loves Darren Brown.

Yes.

So, you know, I think it's just good knowing that for this episode, how much Benito's 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 very...

We'll explain why we've chosen it.

But the secret ingredient, which will get Devin 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.

I guess you'd call it a trick.

A magic trick.

I guess you call it a 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.

Random leader says, sit wherever you like.

Then he mixes some envelopes up on the table, says

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 explained the whole trick.

And then he gets them 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 them some protective gloves.

And then they open it.

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 always think, I don't know how he did any of that.

The thing is, James, I know we're going to pick, we're picking mini rolls as a secret ingredient.

I know you really want to talk to Darren 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?

Yep.

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, go ahead.

Write it down.

Put it in an envelope.

We'll do that.

Put it in the middle of the table.

We don't touch it for the whole thing.

Yeah.

At the end, we get him to open it.

We don't touch it.

And then we can see if we've predicted his dream menu.

We'll do that.

We'll write out his dream menu before he gets here.

Yeah.

Magic trick.

It's going to blow it from his mind.

Because he doesn't know Bonito'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-roles because otherwise he won't be able able to do the magic trick at the end.

No.

Or maybe the envelope will say, you will get kicked out.

Also, I really want to speak to Darren 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 Darren's next show are on sale now at darrenbrown.co.uk.

He doesn't need our help.

He doesn't need our help, but you know,

maybe you do, the listener.

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.

We've been expanding 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 sensed with your genie explosion there, you sort of held it back a little bit.

No, I didn't.

Did I?

Yeah.

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.

Not interview, chat.

Yeah, yeah.

Just chat.

Yeah, a nutty chat.

It's quite rude to start.

I think I'd have to just excuse myself and just let you two chat.

Leave the room.

And Darren is excited to be here.

And I think that would have maybe killed the vibe straight away if James had burped.

It would have just started things off on a slightly off note, but you could have stopped and started again because it's so early in the chat.

Yes.

Yeah, 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.

You wouldn'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, 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, it's very exciting because I haven't had a mentalist on the podcast.

No.

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 it's become a real sort of like it would 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 yeah, probably with a bit of thought, but I try not to use my magical skills in everyday life.

But I mean, you're someone who likes to chat famously.

Love a chat.

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 us meeting before he could actually just relax and have a normal chat like this

because he thought I was constantly doing

that he'd climbed into his brain climbing into his brain and charging or whatever yeah all that stuff I really I really don't I'm very no but I mean it's a compliment to your work is you know the work's excellent so it's like we always get, yeah, with people, those go like, oh, probably going to put this in your action.

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.

I had a lot of, 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?

Oh, yeah.

Like, that's, I've lived with that one for a very long time.

Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty standard response, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, to anyone.

yeah to anyone that's just rude

yeah what the hell didn't you do one when uh you 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 that's something i would have done i was paying paying for stuff with paper yes in new york and seeing how long i could do that for which

yeah i got away with that actually

for some time if you've got to 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 4 your reaction isn't to go yeah I know it's half seven or whatever you're you you sort of feel like you've missed something and it's a very 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's it it completely changes the dynamic and undoes their feeling of power and i've got out of you know a couple of potentially violent situations yeah

um so yeah i that's the confusion i did that on the on the on the tube the other day i did that there was a lady on our carriage who was um 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 yeah and i just went is this the right train for wilson green or not do you know to her

and she just looked at me like what the f

and then i just walked up and she was there in silence I was like, that seems like a good way of dealing with it.

Yeah.

I asked them something normal and they're like, Jesus said I should help this person, but I don't, I want to yell at them.

Did she answer the question?

Did she?

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, right?

Yeah.

Did you feel just the right thing?

That was great.

That was good, actually.

I was quite pleased.

Yeah.

That's, 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

it needs to make sense, just not in context with the situation what's what's your go-to song lyric for the for the uh 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 from a song that's not a song no it's not easy that'd be a good song yeah you're saying you don't really think in those terms all the time you spend a lot of your time doing painting yeah i i've sort of i've taken a bit of a bit of time off uh well at least 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?

Because I only know the title, isn't it?

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 yeah people are buying tickets perhaps and 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're just like I haven't got a clue you want to go you've you've done more for this show than I have

yeah exactly I've still got used to it 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 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 with standard, I 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 going to work with maybe a few percent of that.

So like there's just no way of knowing.

So it's always a nervous start.

But yeah, that rhythm of making it and just going through the first couple of weeks of one of the shows miracle was faith healing in the second half.

But every time you, if you go and see a faith healer, you know, there's evangelical types, you're going there as a believer.

And I knew my audiences would be,

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 do it?

I mean, I know you've won these things, you can't really reveal how you do these things, but like, do you have to go, okay, that's how I'm presenting it, but I'm going to try and like have to trick them a different way because they're different.

Yeah, exactly.

Trying like, yeah, you have to, well i have to 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 fake 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'd been paralyzed down their left hand side their body since they were a kid and it 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 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 lived with had just massively altered so it was that was that was an amazing show to do actually night 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 yeah i really did i thought and i could do it in a secular way like i could say this is it 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 it.

And then I realized that's how you start to go mad.

But it feels really plausible at the time.

It's like, oh 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, 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.

Yeah.

I've seen loads of adverts for it.

And it's always the shiniest looking men.

Very shiny.

Yeah, really shiny.

A lot of white suits and I've been to a few of those things sort of 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 it's a 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 because 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, exactly what I was doing.

I was kind of researching and sat there with glasses on and a baseball cat,

trying not to be noticed.

Well, you've already noticed, but you haven't spoken to us about it.

But for the listener.

I know that you weren't here when me and Darren walked into the studio.

Yes.

You saw what we were about to describe and went, all right.

There's an envelope that says prediction on it and a pen.

We would like you

to please, Darren, to sign across the 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.

You can put it wherever you like as well.

You don't have to put it in front I'm putting it in front of me.

Yeah, yeah, put it right there.

Wow.

You can do it on me.

It's good, isn't it?

Pretty good.

We don't do this for everyone.

No, well, I wouldn't make this.

This is not definitely for anyone else.

I've never noticed this in the podcast.

We always start with still sparks and mortar 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, as you know, is kind of nice and soft and kind of...

But, yeah, I don't like that kind of aggressive bubbly because it should you know it should be a simple act of hydration not a surprise sneezing fit which is yeah where it goes so yeah i i 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 um yeah is it the is it the plopping that you don't like it's the plopping yeah it's um it's really unnecessary and also i've got so used 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 kind of shocks your throat.

So I've got, I quite like a sort of tepid water like Ben's given me here.

It applies to your guests a kind of room temperature.

Effortless minimal effort.

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.

No, that's weird, isn't it?

That we don't offer a guest the choice of still or sparkling in real life only.

No, it's all fake.

That is weird, actually.

I've never thought about that.

But it is weird that we just give you some tap water and then we say, would you like still or sparkle?

That's a hyperpoticle.

We've not talked about the plopping a lot before.

We've not talked about how much it plops when there's stuff in the, especially the ice.

And when ice gets caught in like the lip of a jug and 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 got any lemon.

Yeah.

I yeah, that's all that's all really annoying.

You should get the lemon because you're Darren Brown.

I should get the lemon.

You should know how to get it every time.

I always reach in this.

Just take it.

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.

Nice.

I just I don't like it when waiters point at your food.

I 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, you're not sure.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to work alphabetically through my

so that, yeah, that thing with the finger, when they come in, they go, this is a carrot, and this is, and they're pointing, and they're not actually touching the food because you can slide a sheet of paper between their fingers of food to prove it.

But

that's an annoying habit that I don't like.

It's sort of like

operation in the game.

It's like that.

Where 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 foot?

You have to grab the whole tape.

Oh, no, no, you could do the whole tape.

No, you'd grab the plate and lift them.

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 simply.

But they give you a new one if you

just lifted 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.

No, no, no.

Darren Brown got him to lift a plate.

He couldn't lift a plate.

You can just say Darren when you're in the room, James.

Darren Brown put a phone on the back of his neck.

He told him all the stuff about crystals.

He said, This is really powerful.

He said, This is.

God, yeah.

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 couldn't 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've watched all your stuff.

you have.

We've done your research.

We know it all.

But like, yeah, I mean, when you're doing something like that with someone like Martin Freeman, are you like, man,

I'm going to make you look so weak on TV?

You're loving it.

I don't think anyone remembers that.

Apart from the fact, he is brilliant, but

I don't think anyone's ever mentioned the making Martin Freeman weak skit.

That's very niche.

It's a good one.

Yeah, it's good.

It's a 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 it up or not.

So he was very well dressed.

Yeah.

Very well dressed.

It was during lockdown.

He was on Zoom.

So we were on Zoom.

He's still a little picky though.

Still looked 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 Darren Brown show and Darren's done a trick on me.

No, because Derren used when Devin told him all the stuff, when Devin 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, he was like, oh, no.

If you give him a whole spiel about how the energy in crystals is the same as our energy in the middle.

I'm really trying to remember what it was.

It was so long ago.

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 thought it was.

He can't lift a pen.

Ultimately, I'm cleverer than you is the bottom line of anything I do.

That's the take-home.

That's the take-home, especially for Martin Freeman.

And stronger than

John Freeman.

He's a stronger man than you.

Pop-loves or bread.

Pop-loves hot bread, Jaron Brown.

Pop-loves or bread.

Bleed, jesus um the bread um i'm going for the uh there's a there's a group i used to live not far from dulston and there is a place there called the dusty knuckle and it's do you know it yeah yeah yeah uh and uh i found out many years later that they

uh employ i think it's people ex-prisoners perhaps um and so which 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

still bread focused and charity focused yeah exactly.

So I fell in love with that when I lived in London, haven't had it for a while, but they're sourdough.

Of late, I've

discovered, I've been in Bristol a lot recently, and Hearts Bakery in Bristol also does a very good...

And also Reg the Veg, which is the world's greatest.

Yeah, Reg the Veg.

Is Hearts the one that's under like temple meat?

Phenomenal.

I love Bristol, as I often do.

That is definitely a really, really good.

Great sausage rolls.

Very good sausage rolls.

Yeah, I love that place.

It's brilliant.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

So, yeah, I'd go for a really good sourdough.

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.

Butter?

Warm 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 or warm it up.

But yeah.

For the dream, you want it just cooked, right?

We won't microwave it in the dream restaurant.

No, you wouldn't do that.

There wouldn't be a microwave in the dream restaurant.

This is all bread is fresh out of the oven.

Yeah.

Wow.

Have you ever baked yourself?

No, not myself.

That's the next TV show?

Yeah, that's the finale.

You're still writing this show, this live show.

Finale.

You bake myself.

You bake yourself.

I tried to...

I had the lockdown thing.

I tried it like I did like a lemon drizzle and a couple of things.

And then that was it.

Did you?

did you embrace didn't do any baking realized very quickly that shops were still open and stuff you could you could go and get a loaf of bread you could buy your own way easier scones you mainly did barbecuing i did a little barbecue oh that's nice yeah 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 do you find i would find it very easy to just watch it yeah yeah you do you put the light on you just sit and sit and watch it grab a stool or a cushion And listen, I don't want to keep on chipping in ideas for you.

Go on, please.

But you've got to find new ways of hypnotising hypnotising people.

Watch a rotivity chicken.

You go into a trance, that way.

That's what I've got to do, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's not a toy, is it?

That kind of stuff.

Yeah, okay, brilliant, brilliant idea.

Yeah.

A

giant chicken, clearly fake, but a giant chicken on stage rotating.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And they get hypnotized.

And then when they're hypnotised, you swap them with the chicken.

And then they wake up and they're spinning on the spit.

And you're like.

And it's little chickens in the audience now.

And the audience is full of chicken.

but the chicken's headless because yeah 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 the heads with magic i love as we're talking ben's just like making no

yeah

every time ben writes stuff down you know it's uh yeah shorthand for something well no ben's probably writing down the idea for the trick and then he's going to do it himself ben used to be a magician

right when he was a little boy it's why his nickname is the great bonito because he called himself the great bonito he had a waistcoat and a magic box and everything and would put on magic tricks in the the living room, calling 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.

They'll make notes like Ben does.

Yeah.

Yeah, gags and things.

And they write them down.

It's a little bit, a little bit annoying.

Yeah.

A little bit irritating.

Maybe sometimes you look out into the audience and there's a...

you know, evangelist preacher doing the opposite of what you do.

They're there in their cap and shades and they're getting ideas.

So, 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 yeah, the restaurantiness means I guess someone else is you know washing up and doing all that stuff.

But I've got a very nice lobster risotto that I make.

So I would,

before though, going into this, Parmesan and red wine, I years ago read in an interview with Christopher Walker 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 Sangiovese 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.

Little chef's welcome.

Sort of.

A little chef's welcome.

Yeah.

So that, that will 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.

He said Christopher Walker.

I know, I know.

I wonder how

he would have said that.

Yeah.

I was sort of half hoping one of you would jump in with all of that.

No, I don't know because

a lot of people have got a good walking, and I'm not one of them.

Someone asked me to do it at the gig recently.

Oh, really?

They shouted out, yeah.

The audience started shouting out.

So I'm not very good at impressions.

Right.

So it could run anything on this podcast.

They

started shouting out impressions.

They shouted, Christopher Walken.

And 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 don'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?

It's not the worst thing I've ever done.

You can throw your body into it as well, which I really like.

I was trying to think, go with this watch.

I possess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's, yeah, that's a lovely way to...

If I walked in somewhere and there was Parmesan and red wine on the table.

Crumbled up, not grated.

Yeah.

I mean, like chopped up into like little manager chunks if you want to get a good chunk you want to get the taste of the chunky months aged yeah yeah at least at least i didn't even know that was a thing here like you struggle to get more than whatever 36

here and uh 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 oh 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 or 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, Devin Brown collab, for the next tour, and everything's food-based.

You crack the wheel of palms down and there's a card in the middle.

Yeah.

People do it all the time.

Yeah.

Darren's done it.

Like with fruit or something?

And there are things in there that they treat.

It's a really good.

It's a very good.

You could do it with a wheel of cheese.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know if you could.

I'm trying to work out how you

get something

into a wheel of cheese.

I've got one method, but I think it takes about four years.

Worth it.

Pulse force feels it.

Yeah, it's a 50-month trick.

Yeah.

You must have done a painting of Walking.

I have, yeah, I have over the years.

Done a couple, actually, yeah.

How do you

choose your subjects for your portraits?

Just kind of great faces.

I mean, you've got to, you know, I spent a couple of weeks very close to the big, big paintings as well.

So it's got to be someone who's face I want to paint.

So I've just started one of Jack Nicholson, who's got a great,

a great face, and just finished one of Beethoven, who's also got great...

Well, interesting with Beethoven, you don't really know exactly what he looks like, so he's just kind of working on

other people's paintings.

A Saint Bernard.

You think Beethoven looks like a Saint Bernard?

Why'd you say Saint Bernard?

Are you American?

Well, that was what it was in the film.

Yeah.

James singing in the film.

Beethoven the dog.

Sorry.

Yes, of course.

Sorry.

Sorry, James.

Now they call him Saint Bernard in that.

Yeah, they do.

They do it with Pussy because it's an extra film.

So how have you settled on what Beethoven actually looks like then for your one?

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, so I worked from that.

I worked 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 you've been touring or something and then it just sort of finishes and then you'll there's like and you get really irritated and you blame everybody else.

You don't 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 it's yeah, it's the best.

Yeah, maybe I need to do something like that because I finish 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, oh, I feel really angry.

I'd love it if we started painting, Ed.

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.

You don't 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 chili this 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 chili and then you 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 the 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?

This is the...

Yeah, no.

You're supposed to be able to tilt the plate and a risotto should just move like lava as opposed to a, you know, a wallop of stodge that you often get.

I thought that was a good thing.

That's always stuck with me.

Move like lava.

Lava's a very funny thing to compare it 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.

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?

Pompeii.

Bompei!

Thank you.

A good themed risotto, though, wouldn't it, in Pompeii if you go to a restaurant?

Yeah, it's a sensitive analogy to use in that part of the world.

You get little shaped things under there.

People go

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's too hot.

Yeah.

Get out of the way.

It moves like lava.

It moves like a.

They wouldn't have the word.

I was thinking of 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 Piers Brosnan and Dante's Peak.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

The grandma gets out of the boat.

I guess it's not lava, it's like lava-infused water.

Like it's this lake that is like absolutely 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.

Yeah.

That's nice.

And she's, she absolutely hates it.

Like when she gets in the water, you can tell she's like, this is, no, this wasn't worth it.

I shouldn't have done this.

She's a fool to herself.

She regretted that the moment she got it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It'd be a much better scene if she just put her toe and went absolutely nowhere.

Yeah.

Nope.

Sorry.

Chuck one of the kids in.

I haven't seen Dante Speak.

Like, 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 Ketminodian opened up and we had the...

We had classic.

We had the.

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 them.

Stargate.

Stargate, absolutely.

Me and my mum, as a surprise, took me to see Stargate.

I went bananas for it.

I loved it.

Yeah.

I really loved Stargate.

Twister.

Twister.

Twister.

With Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, he is in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

People in the

finest role.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you must have drawn a

VHS.

You must have drawn Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Yeah, I have.

I have.

PSH.

Fucking hell.

Devin's made me forget that.

I was asking if I had Twister on VHS.

I was like, that's what you.

You must have Twister on VHS, though.

Darren, you do.

You do have it.

You must have drawn Philip Zimmer Hoffman.

I have, yeah, I have.

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?

Do you Twister one?

Just twisting.

Yeah.

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, yeah, sure, I'll do that.

Sure, yeah, I'm just being polite.

Yeah, the chicken idea.

He's going to do it all.

The chicken idea was like, yeah, great.

Okay, great.

I haven't suggested to someone so many things before that they should do.

But I just think it's because if I can influence Darren Brown, then I'm the ultimate influencer.

So I'll just keep on saying, you should do this, Devin.

Yeah.

And if he does what you do.

But Darren's just going to keep going, yeah, sure.

And then he's not going to do any of it.

Yeah.

But 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, sure, David.

I'm tempted to bring out the chicken just as a little niche.

Where would that get the biggest laugh in the country if I brought out

most audiences are going to laugh at that?

They're not made of stone.

That's funny.

But I mean, where would they know you and get the reference after this?

That's most likely.

Kettering, you're doing it.

Kettering.

Kettering, yeah.

Anywhere around Northampton Shear.

Okay.

Yeah, they're most likely going to.

And then you follow up by saying, we all remember what it was like before the Odeon opened.

Yes.

And the roof will come up.

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Dream Bancourse.

Dream Bancourse.

Right, now I feel very strongly about this.

Meatballs.

Meatballs.

So again, we're in my home.

And

if there's a thing I really dislike, I'm trying to make it begin with the 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 pointing.

It's the pointing places again, isn't it you don't want the people pointing at the food it yeah it's it's yeah it's annoying

it kills the vibe and you I don't you know it's just like you don't listen to the origin story of what you know it's just gonna 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 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 now it doesn't quite work so we've got a rectangular one but then you're always a bit you know 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 um it's 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 america 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...

We're having that.

And I learned to cook a bit out in Italy, once in Florence, and then again in Ravello, in 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?

Have you ever made meatballs?

No.

So you soak stale bread in milk and then you kind of take the crust off.

You mix that 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 meatballs, and 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.

And maybe not spaghetti, but like the thicker spaghettis like buccatini or spaghettone or

what's it called?

Pichy that you can make with it's just semolina and water.

And 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 a good spaghetti and really just there's something that's always missing i don't know what it is but it's uh

there's a perfect meatball out there and

the dream restaurant it would be absolutely it would be the perfect meatball that has that there's nothing missing 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 pulpette the actual i think they're needed 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 um but yeah nice round strawberry size

you mean about chasing the perfect one though because i think as english people yes 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, there's a little cartoon circle just next to your head on the wall behind you.

That does look amazing.

I dare to do that.

How do you do that stuff?

There's a little, yeah,

they look like spaghetti and meatballs right there.

Yeah.

Darren, stop.

But

I think you see it in those cartoons.

Look delicious in the bino bino or whatever or like laying in the tramp or

it's kind of cartoon for it.

Yeah, exactly.

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 because somebody sneezed.

You lost me there.

On top of spaghetti

or covered in cheese.

How would Christopher Wogan have sung that?

I lost my poor meatball.

Somebody sneezed.

I thought you meant the rude song you sing at school.

Here we go.

I don't know this.

Do you know spaghetti and meatballs and a banana?

Do you not remember that?

No, I've never heard that before.

I just pointed it as peanuts for the ball.

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.

What's the banana?

I believe leaving the headline until last, it's

the winkle.

It's the peanuts.

It's the winkle.

I thought that's what you meant but my point is yeah spaghetti meatballs are a big part of your life as a kid before you've even tried it i think so before you've even eaten spaghetti 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 yeah 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 yeah there's a whole thing that comes with it which is why you need a dream restaurant to uh to make it happen And I don't even quite know what it would be that would make them the perfect meatball.

I suppose they would have 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 tin of tomato.

You know, like 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, yeah.

My partner has a habit of

serving.

By the time I've sat down, he's served everything out and put it on plates, which to me is, I'd never say anything directly.

I might say on the podcast that he might listen to in the car,

but it slightly kills that part of the process, which I think I think is important.

And also when you sit in 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 think of 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

be, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and yeah, get involved.

Are you tucking a napkin into the collar?

Oh,

I should totally do that.

You should do that.

You're having spaghetti in there.

You're a big kitchen roll in our house, but

yeah, so it might, you know, come up, like bend up a bit.

But yeah, yeah.

But expensive kitchen roll, like you know, the

stuff that really absorbs.

Yeah, bounty.

I was thinking Regina Blitz, but I don't want to.

Yeah.

Regina Blitz.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Isn't that a drag queen yeah

brilliant thank you that's what he reminded me as well i i'd forgotten about this until you started talking about it but like i used to work in the school as classroom assistant and there was like an annex center where the kids who couldn't be in the main school uh would go to school and there's only about three of them in it and they would all be like one-on-one with different um 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'd learned how to make meatloaf from jamie Jamie Oliver's cookbook.

Right.

And he suggested that we made that into spaghetti and meatballs and have it with spaghetti and do that.

And we did that for everyone.

And it was a really nice communal thing.

And that was a very nice memory that I've

half forgotten about until now.

I was really, really fussy when I was a kid.

I barely ate anything.

I was so proper fussy eater.

And then when I was at uni, I was in the back of a car starving.

And the 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 good does it meant salami and salami was an absolute no-no but when it came i was so hungry but when it came it was all like you know mixed into the with 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

and doing that and not giving myself a moment to go hang on where's the salami 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

in my head

the only thing it left was mushrooms and blue cheese which I can't stand but you darren brown yourself I derren brown myself at a young age

are you aware that that's like a saying you know it's a verb you know your name's a verb right I have yeah are you aware I use it I use it without even realizing the irony I just dering brown that yeah yeah me and James watched um someone try and Darren Brown someone else out of uh hating a food you remember oh my god it was the best.

Fucking hell.

Yeah, I do remember.

What happened?

It was when we were doing Celebrity Hunted.

Right.

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 Speakmans.

I don't know if you know the Speakmans.

No.

They're 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 a 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 didn't like Marmite.

So they went, right, Bobby.

Oh, sorry, 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 mentalism on him or hypnosis ever admit if it wasn't working okay he was 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 gonna 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 the enthusiastic face going like it's good isn't it bombing you like it bomb it And did they then get him to try it for really?

The next morning at breakfast, they got him to try some Marmite.

He's like, no, it's 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 he had a pot, and he was putting his finger in

and just into his mouth so much Marmite that even people who love Marmite wouldn't do that.

I love Marmite, but even like a tiny bit of it on its own, I have a real, like it really makes me wretched.

You want to hang out with the Speakman?

I think what they did with him, and maybe you can vouch if this would work.

So they basically said, think of a food you love.

Yes.

And we're putting that over here.

So they like gestured, 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 an NLP stuff going on.

Right, yeah.

I think there's, I remember I cured someone of a cat allergy like that.

And it's 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 um 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 or a couple months whatever he was back to where he was so really yeah hard to hard to say but does it does have it can have some effect we felt bobby seagull was just being polite i think always just being polite and uh what you do is go mmm yeah yeah

he was actively making those noises yeah 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 yeah yeah it's just something it's rare it's rare that you're in a situation where you might end up having marmite or mint sauce by itself but you're gonna do it once if you like both 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 i got hooked on it one day i couldn't stop eating it

just this

we've had to certainly expand your breath yeah

i'll stick for the listener i'll stick

Your dream side dish.

It's not terribly interesting, but I just thought I like a nice, like a rocket salad because 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 very

too carby, I suppose.

Risotto followed by pasta.

Yeah, but people would, like, I would do that at an Italian restaurant.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you're there to enjoy it and you want to get stuck in.

Yeah.

But I suppose they'd appear, the risotto and the pasta would probably appear on the same premi platty course, wouldn't they?

Yeah, but you're the customer, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is a very nice, simple salad

yeah a nice simple salad yeah i think you it could be bottled rice mashed potato i guess that's what carbs in but no it's just yeah nice little um wild rocket quite nice yeah grew my own rocket for a little while it was delicious yeah and then never returned to that

did you make were you making salads pretty regular did you overdo it had a lot of rocket to use yeah 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 it's in the first episode of chef's table that series where and uh i've forgotten the name of the chef namassimo is it or something but like um he tells the story of when they saved all the uh yeah all of the real the rounds yeah it was the broken by by promoting the idea of cooking with broken parmesan wasn't it right yes yeah yeah and they do the tap it how what it should sound like when you tap on it and that stuck with me a lot like that kind of like the the sound of that sounds delicious yeah but they're taping on

a wheel or does it it doesn't work with a wedge no yeah no that's like that's like a you can't go around the supermarket just tapping all the wedges yeah yeah

you've done the other car though

okay yeah yeah tap it on the wheel and what's the what is the sound is it like a dead heavy sound or is it like it's like a yeah it is dead i guess but then there's like a bit of a hollowy sound to it as well so like yeah you get that kind of like so it's like a dampened drum or something and when you hear something when you hear something knock back you know it's ready knock back yeah yeah

little

knock from the inside.

I'm ready.

That's the cheese knocking back.

Yeah, yeah, that's the cheese knocking back.

Three of diamonds.

Yeah.

Four years this has taken.

Here we go.

That would be gutting.

What's the longest you've spent on a trick for it not to work?

That'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 gonna and I just knew none of them were gonna 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 night.

But by the end of it, I'd learned that you know people didn't didn't mind.

It's a weird thing, like you know, you mess mess something up, like it's sort of okay.

But um do people wa almost wanna see you mess at least one thing up?

So yeah, I think I have to and if I if a show's gone too smoothly I will I will mess something up on purpose otherwise it's like a juggler dropping a ball.

I guess you have to.

I I remember I did a show once and I couldn't get the um either me or the person on stage couldn't get the lid off the marker

and there was I could hear backstage running around trying to get another uh trying to get another one those weren't any other markers and it was in the it got reviewed that night and it was like this really lovely human moment I guess they thought I did on purpose so I do it sometimes on purpose because actually now you know 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 a marker off a lid off a marker but yeah failures that's 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.

You can see what happens.

The amount of time you must spend...

There was one where you get a...

There we go.

Darren's not going to remember this at all.

Oh, won't there be another one, I forget.

I'm going to remember this.

There's one where

it's when you have them to bet on the horses.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you said that you'd done it.

So it's, you know, for people who haven't seen it, it's like a series of every time you tell them to bet on a horse, it wins.

Yes.

and then they win massive at the end yeah and uh you've slightly killed the slightly killed the surprise for anybody watching it but yes yes yeah spoiler alert yeah too late to say that it's too linear plot yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what do you want me to say they don't expect because that spoils it even more like but like the idea how it works 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 it or something yeah um yeah how long are you spending on that doing it with with all the yeah yeah so that took a very long time so yeah it all started with the the idea that you know you 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 you get it this 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 Do you want to buy the system?

It's expensive, but you'll be able to do this whenever you like.

And yet you just start with enough people.

and the one in six that get happened to get the winning horse, the winning prediction, because you 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 accurate, you know, impossible predictions.

And, 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.

Well, here's how it all works.

So, let's

see.

Oh, no, there was a twist at the end.

I won't say, just in case there's anyone out there that still wants to watch it, but people have to watch it.

Your dream drink, Devin Brown.

Dream, well, I'm going for a guy.

I'm going for a bottle of,

well, it all starts with the Parmesan, I suppose.

So, a nice Sangiovese, maybe a

Brunello de Motalcino, 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 a huge why the half glass i drink exactly the same amount as milk goes into a cadbris flake that's that's and then i stop it's a very good system now not enough people stick to that it's an example of a martini afterwards and i i i don't i just can't do a martini if i've had more than like maybe a glass and a half yeah yeah that's why i start with a martini and then i think do you then i think i can carry on yeah Do you start okay?

I'll start with a martini.

Yeah, I think it's a nice

digestive afterwards and opens you up a little bit.

I think if I got to the end of the night, I'd be like, no, there's nowhere 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.

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.

Do you remember Clear Rockus, who was Kenny Everett's sidekick?

Yeah.

Red-headed bombshell.

So she's a good friend and she has a tequila brand of her own called Aquariva.

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 it's maybe it's a bit like everything's been taken away and replaced with identical

something slightly off.

You 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 than to feeling like all of my stuff being replaced with identical versions of themselves 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 be a welcome yeah

a welcome deal yeah with a welcome and it is a weird drink and then you're moving on to the the red wine moving on to the onto the parmesan the red wine yeah yeah so this is very italian menu have you spent a lot of time in italy do you remember the first time you had these italian wines that you thought this 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 and going, that's it, that's what I like.

That's my one.

That's it.

Yeah, and then you, from that, I guess you sort of build out and go, I quite like that too.

No, I can't remember the difference.

I don't know which one I'm drinking.

But there's, yeah, so that's definitely my winy home.

And then, yeah, I'd cook Italian food all the time.

I love pasta.

I would have pasta all the time.

And I can.

You literally can.

You don't run.

Exactly.

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We arrive at your dream dessert.

Very exciting.

You're ready.

Yeah, has it gone quickly?

Has gone quickly, yeah.

You have no idea how many other, you know, tricks and specials of yours I've held back on asking about, so I've done quite well.

Yeah, I really appreciate it.

I do.

You ever worry about people that you've done stuff on?

You ever go, I hope that guy's all right, or I 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 sort of that's that's what's happened.

So, like in the last one, um, it's a few years ago now on uh

Netflix and Channel 4 called Sacrifice.

I remember the guy, oh, yeah, this is the guy getting

laying down his life for an illegal Mexican immigrant, but he himself was you know very much anti-all of that immigration stuff so as whether he could be changed and he

yeah so he came over I flew him over to watch the show and watched it because it's all very weird when you it's not just 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 close-ups and bits edited out that might have meant a lot to you but just don't make the final carton song

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 remote

yeah

um we uh I didn't expect him to come up twice um and uh because I wanted him to because he was a big fan of Martin Freeman and Martin's 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 the other guys that had done the other shows like that that I've done that all been through these similar journeys so he could feel like part of a very niche oh that's nice 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.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've been through different things.

One of them thought zombies were real.

Yeah.

He's walking around.

Waiting for the signal

to attack.

Just all of them in the house constantly paranoid that it's another, that something else is happening, but it's just.

I do get occasional 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 like 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 uh 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 ticking over and he just totally freaked out thought the whole thing was about him and he literally ran down the street screaming he totally lost his shit and ran ran down the street in the middle of a live thing screaming.

I mean, I get the impulse.

Yeah.

I completely understand.

Even more embarrassing when someone has to go, it's not.

It's not.

And you might be a narcissist.

Yeah, you're total main character syndrome.

Literally main character syndrome.

It is 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 everything was fine.

And even that meant, you know, the whole show had to go down the toilet.

It 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, but so I would sleep and he would sleep.

But we had a

backup hypnotist

just in case he was doing a night shift.

I was just watching Stephen sleep, just in case anything like that happened.

And I won't mention his name.

I normally do.

I won't disconnect him because I'm not embarrassing.

But he needed to go to the loo.

So at some point, he said, do you mind if I need power to 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.

I mean, there was like a, there was a portaloo somewhere.

So yeah, just best you 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 backup hypnotist is 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.

Then there's like a load of silent zombies sort of pretending to shake the thing, the fences, and they kind of run through there a bit.

And no one tells backup hypnotist in the toilet that he can come out at the end of it.

So he just, he knows he's there to do a job.

So he just sort of sleeps, I think, in the portal.

It was certainly there for a very, very very long time.

So, there are entire sequences of that show where there's a backup hypnotist trapped in the portal.

You see his outline if you look carefully, just leant against the wall, sleeping.

That way, you should have just filmed 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 Charbonnel et Walker salted caramel truffle.

So, I love it.

Because normally I'm full, right?

I make these carbi things.

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 do it as non-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 the 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 gonna go I'm gonna go apple crumble must be a popular choice yeah pretty popular comes up yeah yeah not normally after risotto and spaghetti no I mean this is it that's not

it's not a practical no but we're employing the genie's powers here you know you're not you're not feeling full you're ready for apple crumble exactly yeah hearty might even put a little uh sharpened wok on top Yeah, we'll give you the Sharpen and Walk.

You're having that afterwards because you described it so lovely.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

You absolutely should.

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 do oats.

My mum's always like, have you put oats in there?

Okay.

She's not sure about the oats.

Got her way of doing it.

And 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 I quite like the oats.

so yeah nothing particularly imaginative with the apple crumble but it's just again it's just all it's all comfort food for me risotto's a big comfort food as well isn't it it's all red wine

it's all about that and again bringing it out and maybe with ice cream but probably with custard hot or cold custard oh no hot custard don't yeah don't do that do people people have cold custard we both like on a hot dessert cold custard we both like it yeah but it's the same yeah you say you might have ice cream that's basically just very cold custard isn't it the coldest of all custards.

It is, but I'd rather go custard over ice cream.

I do love an ice cream.

In fact, my other option would have been vanilla ice cream with Swiss roll, chocolate Swiss roll from me, a kid who did that.

So a bit like essentially a deconstructed Arctic roll, which we all had, I'm sure.

Joe, what we can tell you,

because you have chosen the apple crumble.

Every episode, there's a secret ingredient if the guest chooses it.

Have I mentioned it?

Sort of.

Mini rolls for you.

Yeah.

We chose that because of a trick you did with mini rolls.

I was doing my best.

I think that was that was dangerously close to it okay well I won't you're allowed to mention it it's fine you're not making

something about chocolate rolls you haven't chose chose it so we're fine yeah okay but like um but if you chose it as your chocolate but no chocolate so yeah

because a Swiss roll 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 okay

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 and 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 that they're getting their meal.

Even though it's a completely imaginary menu, there's liver that they're.

They're so disappointing.

For you, it was mini rolls because of the League of Gentlemen thing you did.

Yes.

And I will say, though,

that Mini Rolls thing is the only thing that I'm going to just straight up ask you how you did it.

I know you're not going to tell us.

And I know it's a waste of time.

I know that magicians and ventilists and everyone get asked this all the time.

But it's been bothering me ever since I saw it, probably over a decade ago.

And I would like you to just tell us how you did it, please.

One martini.

Tell you anything.

But it's a razor blade and a

razor blade in the Swiss.

Chocolate roll.

Chocolate roll.

I won't say it.

Not a Swiss 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 color chair they're going to sit on and they reach under their chair and they've all got the color that corresponds to that there's a whole bunch of different things that have to all be

men in the table it's the ones that escaped from the pay

yeah yeah i mean that is i think i think about it a lot i think i i don't know i'm genuinely i genuinely cannot remember i watch i do occasionally watch those things back i have no idea yeah

i i sort of well not quite that a sadly as that sounds but occasionally i'll just watch it because someone will be talking about it.

Oh, no, I haven't seen that video.

I'll pop that on the find it.

Or it'll just suddenly 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.

Trick myself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's an idea.

Uh-huh.

Trick yourself in the future.

Yeah.

Are you going to add any more to that?

Well, yeah, it's just getting the ball going.

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, fuck it now.

So, the audience are watching me do tricks on myself and go, I had no idea.

Watching you react to the video, of course, they will all think you're just

potentially tricked.

Yeah, but you will know.

Can they see what's on the video?

Are they just watching my reaction?

They can see what's on the video, they can see what's on the video, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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 Nyman does it,

just get the ball rolling, just trick yourself in the future.

So, he's like,

Please stop.

That's a weird thing with that.

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.

Yeah, yeah.

No, you didn't.

That was a rotation chicken.

That was

something else.

But yes, the idea of rotation is something that we

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 just a chicken.

Yeah, it's fine.

And to be honest, if the chicken's not rotating, I'm not going to think it's me.

If you've just got chickens knocking about, I'm not going to go that with me.

Yeah.

It's only if it's a rotisserie chicken being used to put someone into a trance.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then they're on the rotisserie at the end.

And it's me.

But then even then, I'm not going to get annoyed.

I didn't get credit.

I'll just know in my heart.

Yeah.

There's about inner satisfaction, isn't there?

That's enough.

That is enough.

I'll be really happy with that.

It's about time the hypnotists 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, or she or they draw like a spiral on 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 yeah chicken so if you're sat in front and your view isn't obscured by the drumsticks yeah you could be more powerful wouldn't it and also like if the if the audience can't see that spiral yeah it adds to it right because they think they're just hypnotized 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 a on the front of the yeah yeah when you're doing that spiral it would feel good to write yeah on the neck of a chicken with a biro you wouldn't sorry just to say yeah you wouldn't need to draw a circle you could hold the biro still and let the rotisserie spit through the work for you

yeah this is gonna be a weird show your next show I don't think that's weird at all what 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 to the side slowly to the left yeah

all right I'm in you're in yes martini oh I think yeah we follow we've definitely we finish with a um yeah a uh an extra dry painfully brutally dry vodka martini I'd probably go

maybe Connix Tail with a twist.

With a twist?

Yeah.

Not twist dirty.

Twist is chocolate truffle biting.

If anyone's seen Devin Brown, he always

ends with a twist.

I was too excited to say that, but I think that was very good to say that even Devin Brown's menu ends with a twist.

And then if you just said that, great.

Read your menu back to you now, see if you feel about it.

Be mindful.

Okay, go.

A Tommy's margarita when you arrive.

That's nice.

You would like still water, not too cold, nothing in it, no plops.

Poplums of bread, you would like like sourdough warm with butter and salt then some parmesan and red wine on the table for starter you would like a lobster risotto main course perfect meatballs and 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 monte

dessert you would like an apple crumble hot with hot custard and then uh charbonnet uh walker salted, caramel truffle.

What is it to say?

And an extra dry vodka martini.

Did you say the crumble?

Yes.

Still thinking about it, okay, yeah.

Yeah, no, I hypnotised you and you forgot that I said the crumble.

It worked.

That's amazing.

Hearing you say it back as beautifully as you did.

Yeah, that's gorgeous.

Well,

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.

It just 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.

You can hear the envelope being opened.

It says prediction on the front of it.

I've 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 old.

We got that one wrong.

That's wrong.

I always see it.

But you always get one wrong.

You've got to get one wrong at the top.

I did have a moment there of thinking, oh my gosh, this is actually going to be everything.

Well, you always Well, no, no, you always get the first one wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

Failure, yeah, dropping a ball.

All right.

Poppadoms or bread, you've put egg, mcmuffin, and a cigarette.

Always get the second one wrong.

Always get the second one wrong.

Starter clams, main candy floss, flambéed.

Well,

okay, not far off.

You're not far off.

Side, spaghetti hoops boiling hot.

Nearly.

Like lava?

Nearly.

I like lava spaghetti hoops is close drink an ice cold beer

dessert nothing you haven't written anything we ran out of beer we had a page that we

didn't really space out the menu enough and we ran out of space

we had to just leave it dessert this is uh went out of space i'm framing this yeah

that's that's not spaghetti well you 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 an ice

gate cold beer in a sense candy floss comfort food yeah clams well I mean clams are by the sea pompeii's by the sea yeah they probably were feasting on clams when when it all when it all struggled

we talked about all of us

olive oil was in the salad yeah Egg McMuffin

had a cigarette that's my favourite that you peaked uh peaked early

um yeah that one is wrong and then olive oil was correct that's what i said so yeah yeah that's pretty good Phenomenal.

Pretty good.

Very proud of that.

You just got Devin Brown.

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 to chat to Darren.

What a nice man.

What a great men.

What a lot I could have said.

Yes, I know.

So many episodes.

Questions have got.

I'm well aware.

I looked round at you during that interview and you were pinching your leg at some point.

Yes, just to get myself a shut up.

To stop yourself saying all the different shows he's done.

Don't ask him about all the shows, James.

Calm down.

Yeah.

Back off.

You've got to prioritise.

It was lovely to speak to Darren.

I enjoyed his menu very much.

And he didn't say mini-roles, 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 going to choose it.

So I thought we could let him know.

Because if he did say Swiss roll, we would have had to have debated that.

And I guess ultimately, mini rolls, the clue is in there.

It's a mini roll.

It's a mini roll.

And it's chocolate and Swiss rolls, not traditional chocolate.

It is specific.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 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.

We Derren 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?

Or is 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

during every course, I actually said these things.

Yes.

If you listen back.

I got it in there.

You didn't notice.

That would have blown 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 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 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?

And where's the composition?

They're 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.

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Oh, hi, James.

Have you heard the news?

Oh, yeah, go on.

You and I are modern boys because the off-menu podcast is now on YouTube.

This is embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing, man?

You love YouTube.

I love watching clips on YouTube.

Sure.

Now people can watch clips of Off Menu on YouTube and full episodes.

But it's embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing at all.

It's really cool.

We're on YouTube with the great and good.

The coolest people in the world are on YouTube.

Me, you, Logan Paul.

Who's Logan Paul, the dad from Succession?

At Off Menu Podcast, that's what Benito's calling us now.

And we're on TikTok.

This is embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing, man.

We're cool.

We're like Olivia Rodrigo.

And Ed.

People have been asking us, battering us, bothering us, actually.

They want to watch the Stephen Graham supercut from the Stephen Graham episodes.

They can see all of his reactions to us, everything that he did.

Or Benito has bent to their whims.

And he's going going to put it on YouTube.

He's going to do it.

Follow us at Off Menu Official on TikTok, at Off Menu Podcast, on YouTube.

You can watch clips from the podcast.

And on YouTube, you can watch full video episodes.

People have been asking for it, and you're finally getting it.

Full video episodes.

So you can see every single nuance on our little faces.