Let’s begin.

ONE — I know, let’s make a guy think that everybody he knows and loves is probably dead.

The premise is, like most of his shows, about somebody who doesn't appreciate a vital detail of their lives. In this case, it’s Steven, a man who “suffers” from “a lazy sense of entitlement”.

He doesn't give a damn about his friends, his family or himself. Derrens solution? Make him think everyone he knows has probably perished in a zombie apocalypse.

The usual pattern to Derrens work soon falls into place, he creates a stressful situation, like say, seeing a gruesomely disfigured zombie chase you down a hallway, and puts a “chance for redemption” in the victims’ way. In this instance, rescuing a girl much younger than him who is clearly in need of some protection.

From there the zombie apocalypse gets worse, and the people he meets are increasingly volatile or a zombie. Or in the end, both.

Derren assures us that Steven is under constant surveillance by medical and psychological professionals to make sure that he never reaches a level of “mortal fear” or goes on to develop post traumatic stress.

I’m not sure about you, but if I woke up in a world that was, as far as I could tell, currently experiencing an apocalypse, and I was being chased by blood soaked zombies, I would, at some stage, feel mortal fear.

It was entertaining, and fascinating to watch, but I spent the whole time thinking “what if he decks that old guy, or tries to knife one of the actors playing a zombie?!”. Obviously if it made it to TV then he didn't, but that must have been a worry.

You certainly wouldn't catch me dressed as a zombie, willfully chasing someone who may or may not try “to remove the head or destroy the brain” at any moment.

Mental.

TWO — What if right, we made a dude think he murdered somebody?

What?! As a joke on a friend for 10 seconds this is sort of funny, but to make somebody confess to a murder they didn't commit? Now you are messing with their soul.

Again though, this is exactly what happened in Season 1 Episode 3 of ‘The Experiments’. In a murder mystery puzzle, Derren convinces some poor sap into thinking he actually murdered someone.

Please take a second to think about what you would feel like if you just realised that you murdered someone. It would probably look something like:

“My life is over. I’m going to prison. All those dreams I had, gone. I wont get to see the new Star Wars films for at least 20 years and I wont have sex with a lady for possibly the rest of my life. Balls.”

Yet this is what Derren Brown is making people go through whilst he grins manically into the camera and whispers something like “this is the crucial part!”

Which part is that Derren, where you permanently destroy somebody's grip on reality?

THREE — Alright alright I got it, let’s get a dude to point to a gun at another human and threaten his life in exchange for cash.

Have you ever willingly threatened to end somebody's life? As in, have you gestured or indicated that you are about to mortally wound them?

I haven’t, and I never want to. I would like to live in a peaceful society where I never have to.

Derren Brown doesn't.

He made some guy, through the power of suggestion and circumstance, find himself with the opportunity to commit an armed robbery in broad daylight.

Now, it’s only money, and it’s all insured, however I find that planting the suggestion in somebody's head that you should take that gun in your possession, and use it to intimidate and take money by force, deeply disturbing.

Derren Brown describes this as one of his proudest moments.

Let’s have a break

Now I’m a comedy writer, and this is clearly a comedy piece, one born out of a discussion at a dinner table with friends.

But as I sat down to write this article, the strangest thing happened. I actually started to wonder what this says about us as a viewing audience. Why do we enjoy watching such clear acts of manipulation and violence?

It is undoubtedly entertaining, I have been gripped by just about everything he has ever produced, and I do think he is one of the top 3 entertainers in the UK right now.

But it is sick. Really really sick. I got to wondering if the friends and family would be so gleeful in their interviews that punctuate the various shows, as they detail what a bum their friend or son or daughter really is, if it was not on TV?

If a man put an advert in the paper that read something like “does your son or daughter not eat their greens? Allow me to hypnotise them and transport them in to a world where I force feed them pig blood!” you would quite rightly call the police. (Although this does sound like how ‘I’m a Celebrity’ got started…)

Derren tells us his contestants are OK and suffer no ill effects, but we don’t know this. For all we know they have a gagging order linked to a cash incentive if they keep quiet about it. Probably not, but you do have to take his word for it.

On some of his shows he interviews hundreds of people to find the right one, someone with just the right blend of stupid and testicular fortitude. The person he chooses is somewhat irrelevant, it’s the fact there are just so many people, all who know that they may find themselves fearing for their life, or threatening that of others, desperate to come on his show. It’s worrying. The fact you would willingly expose your brain to that sort of trauma is not normal.

Maybe I’m reading into it too much, maybe some people view it as nothing more than a roller coaster for the mind, and that his team of experts really do ensure long term sanity.

But it makes you wonder.