British mentalist Derren Brown has done a fair few TV specials, and like the illusionist David Blaine, he started small with entertaining tricks and then started ramping up the scale of his productions, and got a lot of flak for overwrought theatricality and ruining the fun with ever-increasing amounts of required disbelief.
His latest, Apocalypse, isn’t about changing that course, but it’s compelling TV because of how extreme a prank it is, and how it digs a sole man/victim/subject deep into a pop-culture reference we’ve all thought about: a zombie invasion.
The whole show is about convincing one wayward young man that the end of the world has begun, in an effort to shock him into displaying leadership and responsibility. They staged explosions, helicopters, a military hospital for him to wake up in, and more. It’s in two parts on YouTube — I skipped straight to the second last night, which starts with a helpful recap.
