8. Keep ahead of the times

During the filming of the 1919 film, The Grim Game, there was a real-life mid-air plane crash. The star of the movie was the greatest escape artist of all time: Harry Houdini. So how did the producers capitalise on the crash? By telling the press that Houdini was on that plane and survived near certain death.

He was not on the plane; it was a stunt double (who did survive). But the public didn’t need to know that. They needed to know that Houdini was now a movie star.

While biographers often write off his silver-screen ventures as flops, Derren Brown argues that Houdini’s experience with Hollywood and his embrace of the emerging technology of film demonstrate a shrewd operator who understood that in order to be a genuine star, you must stay ahead of the curve.

And his use of emerging forms of communication with the masses goes beyond film: Houdini used early postal networks and telegrams like a proto-social media campaign. And he pioneered in radio, giving magic lessons over the newly formed airwaves.

Presenter: Derren Brown
Writer/Producer: Calum McCrae
Additional research: Alice Homewood
Sound designer: David Crackles
Executive producer: Sophie Ellis
Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams
Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke

A Strawberry Blond production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4