Fans split between scepticism and wonder at Brown stunt

Derren Brown's latest performance has been greeted with a mixed response by critics and viewers alike.

The magician and illusionist, famed for his outlandish televised stunts, appeared to predict the six winning balls in the midweek National Lottery draw in a new live show entitled Derren Brown: The Event.

Though the Channel 4 programme was broadcast at the same time as BBC1's lottery draw, to dispel notions that the stunt had been pre-recorded, many viewers seemed unconvinced by the trick on Thursday morning.

While a number of users of microblogging site Twitter expressed their amazement at the stunt, others seemed markedly less convinced.

'So Derren Brown announced the lottery result just *after* each ball came out? Wow, he's a wizard,' joked Twitter user Maxicom.

Other users pondered whether Brown could have used a split screen or a pre-broadcast link to the BBC draw that allowed him to write down the correct six numbers and many were desperate to learn Brown's method in a follow-up programme to be broadcast on Friday night.

The 38-year-old made the headlines in 2003 for a Russian roulette stunt though later admitted the trick had been a hoax as no live ammunition had been used.

Fellow performers were reticent about Brown's possible methods for the lottery numbers stunt, with Jack Delvin, president of the Magic Circle, saying industry ethics meant he could not divulge any insider knowledge.

'If I did know how he did it, I would not be able to say because the first rule of the Magic Circle is not to tell your secrets,' Mr Delvin told the Daily Mail.

'I would be shot, hung, drawn and quartered.'

He added: 'Derren Brown is not a member of the Magic Circle. We invited him to join but he declined saying that he was not a magician but an illusionist.'

The Independent's television critic Tom Peck advised viewers to view Brown's programme on Friday as there had been 'no visible editing shots [and] no commercial breaks' for the Wednesday show, raising the possibility that the stunt had been authentic.

The Guardian's Vicky Frost, however, was less overawed, writing: 'The fact that Brown didn't reveal his numbers before the draw, of course, will only add fuel to discussions about how he pulled it off, although the numbers didn't, at least, come out of an envelope.'