About this podcast

For a century, Harry Houdini has been safely filed away in the public imagination as a nostalgic variety act: a man in monochrome film escaping handcuffs, water tanks, and straightjackets. This series smashes that myth. Hosted by “psychological illusionist” Derren Brown, How Houdini Made Magic reframes a penniless immigrant refugee named Erik Weisz as a prophetic, hyper-modern visionary. Long before the birth of Silicon Valley, modern political spin rooms, or algorithmic social media, Houdini…