Review by Connie at Leicester's De Montfort Hall
Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review
Derren Brown: Only Human is a theatrical masterpiece that combines storytelling, incredible set, sound, and lighting design, and is a spectacle for the ages.
Brown’s showmanship is as magnetic as ever. He commands the room with every word and is a consummate professional when it comes to pacing, tone, and pitch variation with his storytelling. I was on the edge of my seat more than once, gasping and applauding and trying to work out how so much of what he does is possible.
Brown knows when to let a moment breathe long enough to build tension before releasing it with perfectly timed humour. I have to say, I was surprised by how much humour there was in the show – some proper laugh-out-loud moments – and it was a fantastic element to be included to help the audience relax and release some of the mystified energy that often builds up. Credit for this belongs to Brown himself, of course, but also Stephen Long, and Andrew O’Connor, Brown’s co-writers, and the director of the production, respectively.
The combination of set design (by Simon Higlett) and video design (by Simon Wainwright) is fantastic, making great use of screens in collaboration with physical elements, often creating seamless transitions where you can’t work out where one ends and the other begins. The stage held a quality in its presentation which helped the production feel immersive and transportive.
Particular highlight deserves to be shone upon Charlie Morgan Jones’ lighting and Beth Duke’s sound design – Morgan Jones’ lighting fluidly moves the environment from warm and intimate, into suspense, moments of tension, and also sometimes isolation, shifting tone and focus with grace and remarkable precision. Duke’s sound design shapes the atmosphere of the theatre, transforming it from a conversational environment into a game show-like ambiance, a clinical experience, and so much more.
Brown himself requested for any reviewers or audience members who may post about the show online to keep the secrets under wraps and allow each new audience member the joy of surprise as they watch, so I shall not provide much context, but there was a particular sequence where the sound design excelled to such a degree that goosebumps broke all along my skin and the audience was so immersed you could have heard a pin drop. It was breathtaking and every member of the technical team deserves recognition for their work on this production.
As with many of Brown’s shows, this performance focused on a sizeable amount of audience participation – both in large groups and solo contributors. It struck a very good balance of giving everyone the chance to partake, without forcing any unwilling audience member into a position they didn’t wish to be in. Every participant was voluntary, and the method of choosing participants was often quite entertaining, to say the least.
What lingers most, however, was the message running through the centre of every part of the show – the notion of being ‘only human’ – not as a limitation, but as a fascination. A question, an insight, into the extraordinary capabilities of the human mind and human perception.
The experience leaves you sitting with this contradiction: how can someone who seems almost superhuman use that very illusion to remind you of your own humanity?
Derren Brown: Only Human plays the rest of this week (until 25th April 2026) in Leicester, before continuing on tour to High Wycombe, Dublin, Belfast, Plymouth, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Stoke on Trent, Stockton, Sheffield, Northampton, and Torquay.
The show will transfer for a limited run on the West End at the end of this year, from 1st October 2026 to 30th January 2027. For more information and tickets visit https://derrenbrown.co.uk/shows/only-human/
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