>How does he guess what card Stephen Fry mentally picks here? It seems kind of impossible, but not when you know how it's done—combining 3 different elements/techniques.

Or just fixing the cards and/or paying Fry (a professional host and actor) and/or editing the video.

Cheating with editing video/paying stooges would be one way, but far as I know he never does/did that, in any of his TV or live shows. He worked for years in restaurants, going from table to table doing magic, without assistants or any props but those in his pockets etc, and developed a lot of his tricks and skills then. He explained this trick in one of his books:

1. the deck has only (from memory) 8 different cards, enough to appear a full deck. He has 8 different card-cigarettes in his pockets for the later part of the trick.

2. You can hear him "forcing" the K of diamonds before Fry picks it.. burn the image of the card (red picture card) .. burn that into your mind..don't go for the 3 of hearts (red but not a heart). He's highly skilled in this kind of suggestion, with years of practice, guiding your choice without your noticing. This doesn't guarantee K of diamonds, but vastly increases the odds, which a lot of Brown's stuff, and other mind readers, involves—increasing the odds, by various means. Then,

3. to me the most interesting part, the framing. When he says repeat that over and over in your mind, like K of Diamonds, K of Diamonds - Fry picked that card, and it seems even more impressive than if Derren had correctly guessed his card at that point and ended the trick, more casual and witty, pretending he didn't know it when he did. It seems as if Derren knew the card, but he didn't know for certain. There was just a fair chance it was right, maybe 30-50% or more. If he was wrong, as in many other times he performed it, the trick would continue naturally, no harm done, and he's learnt it's not the K of Diamonds. The trick will always end in success, but this bonus mind reading miracle along the way has a fair chance of success, maybe much more than 50% in Derren's hands.

I've heard magicians say the best possible magic trick is to get someone to shuffle a proper deck of cards, then you announce the top card before they turn it over. 1/52 times you will be right, and they will never believe it was just chance, but forever believe you can do miracles. This is a version of that, but with much greater odds, and a very natural, invisible "out" if you are wrong.

> Or just fixing the cards and/or paying Fry (a professional host and actor) and/or editing the video.

Fry does not need that money and he really, really does not strike me as the type who would wittingly go for that kind of shenanigans.

I am however certainly not convinced that Brown does what he claims he does.

>Fry does not need that money and he really, really does not strike me as the type who would wittingly go for that kind of shenanigans.

It's showbusiness. You don't need to need the money. Tons of actors endorse BS products or do BS movies despite having 10s or 100s of millions in the bank.

And tons don't.

If someone told you they'd steal a 100k GBP item from you at 3 PM tomorrow, would you only have one person watching it?