upvote for showmanship but seriously - Does he talk like that always? I thought bugs bunny would going to make an appearance, he does need a drumkit though

This guy has excellent showmanship, and succeeds at playing the audience with his comedy act as well as sleight of hand.

Kind of embarrassed to admit I was entertained. Good showmanship.

from the 'Criticism' section on him on Wikipedia :

'In his book Tricks of the Mind, Brown writes, "I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty. As I say in each show, 'I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship'. I happily admit cheating, as it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't. I am an entertainer first and foremost, and I am careful not to cross any moral line that would take me into manipulating people's real-life decisions or belief systems."

Brown claims he has never used actors or stooges in his work. In Tricks of the Mind he offers the defence that such a ploy is "artistically repugnant and simply unnecessary"; furthermore, he "would not want any participant to watch the [TV] show when it airs and see a different or radically re-edited version of what he understood to have happened"....'

Holy crap! That's way beyond nuts, dude. I mean I was fascinated and I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time I was watching this, even though it was a pretty safe assumption that there wasn't going to be any violence, but why did this guy do this? One could argue that by watching this there's a razor-slim chance that you might learn to save your own life if you find yourself in a similar predicament, but really this just smacks of showmanship to me. It's like watching a lion-tamer in the circus who doesn't have a chair or whip.

Balls of steel, or sheer madness? Probably both.

Master showmanship needs no musical talent. 5 stars.

My main problem with this talk is that Clifford seems to be performing an act and not giving a talk, which I found quite distracting. I would be fine with the presentation if Clifford was geniunly as hyperactive and scattered as he comes across in this video. But from watching his other talks, his persona in this video seems so far removed from his actual self that the whole talk comes across as disingenuous. Sure, every talk needs a certain amount of showmanship, a certain amount of flair to enhance its reception. But Clifford emphasizes style way more than the content of his talk; its the kind of performance one would expect from Robin Williams if he was asked to portray John Nash in a remake of A Beautiful Mind.

I think they usually play in dark venues. Its the light of day, it burns their showmanship away.

That WAS really good showmanship.

Theatrics and showmanship may be a factor here, but they don't detract from the message he's sending, nor how justified it is. His delivery is sharp, and he speaks as if he is addressing Bush directly, in the same way a parent would scold a misbehaving, troublesome child... which seems to be the appropriate tone considering the past 6-7 years.

Hmmm....

I don't see it as showmanship as much as I see Olbermann as the guy on the Titanic telling everyone the ship is going to sink, and everybody is whispering to each other "Why won't he shut up and let us enjoy ourselves?"

Everytime the camera cuts from one to the other, the credibilty falls as the sense of showmanship rises....a shame

BrknPhoenix: I'm have a big geek-on for Derren Brown, so I have to correct you on the NLP thing. Although he acknowledges that there are some good general concepts in NLP, which he makes use of now and then, Derren knocks it in his book for being too rigid in its application of those concepts (as well as massively overstating its own effectiveness).

Some of the main techniques you'll see in this show are cold-reading, reading (and sending) body language, and hypnotism. However, over and above all of these is the art of showmanship. You'd be amazed how much of this stuff works purely through getting the people involved to believe it will work...

"I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship"

I've read alot into Mr. Brown and basically he IS dishonest about what he's actually doing in the sense that his presentations are clever (i.e. believable) misdirections. For example, he often implies that he's achieving the effect with some sort of persuasion and suggestion technique while in fact he is using much more mechanical and well-studied performance magic (especially mentalism) techniques. I know how he does about 80% of his stuff cuz I've bothered to read up about it and read all the books he's read but another 20% still baffles me. Overall I think he's brilliant at what he does.

I saw these fellas in Melbourne recently and they really try to put on a dynamic performance. Podiums for the guitar solos and fans blowing up from the stage so their hair flared up like fire - it all really suited the 'ball flexin' lyrics and sound. I think good showmanship on stage is equally as important for a band as musical skill, and though it's not really my type of metal, I did enjoy it for what it was