Shirley Ghostman Vs Shermer and Dunning!

I am SO hoping this ends up on YouTube somewhere -- what a hoot! From Brian Dunning on SkepticBlog:

Today I was invited to host an episode of a new series for a major cable network in which I was to interview and administer a test to three professional psychics. This was the first episode they’d shot, and the producers and director were really nice and cool and it had all the makings of a fun and productive day. They had located three psychics who were all game, and were fully willing to undergo the tests under controlled conditions…

The third psychic was, unfortunately, not a psychic at all, but a young comedian who used to have a show on the BBC, and now appears to be trying to make a name for himself as a nemesis of skeptics. He’s going to find this an uphill battle, as he’s neither clever, funny, particularly talented in any apparent way, nor does he seem to know much about psychics or criticism of psychics.

I beg to disagree, Mr Dunning. But then, he hasn’t probably seen the work of Shirley Ghostman / aka Marc Wootton? There’s a series run-down of the show, for a fuller picture.

Thanks to the UK skeptics who took part, such as Tony Youens, you can read his account of appearing on the Shirley Ghostman show here -- and  you can read Wendy Grossman’s account of appearing on the show here and Nick Pullar’s here. Whilst they certainly report on being led astray as to the purpose -- much like the Skepticblogs rendition -- the quasi-Borat-style seems to be adhered to throughout. Pretty much everyone I’ve shown them to, skeptically-minded or otherwise, have enjoyed them.

If readers are not familiar with Shirley Ghostman’s work -- here’s a few vids! I absolutely love Dr Chris French’s deadpan, dignified approach, it is just a joy to see.

Shirley Ghostman doesn’t really believe himself a psychic. Really Shirley is just an over-the-top character of a spoof comedy show. Here Skeptic Christopher French goes up against Shirley and shows how hard it can be to tell a legitimate looney from a joke.

There’s a abridged version of the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ story that eventuated, which Michael Shermer then Twittered on Twitter -- you can see the sequence there (and don’t click on unless you want to see the ‘Tweets’ in total). Dr Shermer has promised to write his account of the hilarity on Skepticblogs next!

Filmed show today for Showtime called Versus, episode Skeptics v psychics, me and skeptilogist Brian Dunning -- Brian tested psychics on hidden drawings, all failed miserably but during our wrap up dialogue of Brian and I, one of the psychics burst… into the studio pushing a cart with a body bag screaming he had Lee Majors in the bag, because earlier he said Lee would die today, & wanted… his $50,000 prize from Brian, dreaming and ranting, either a total psychotic break or an Andy Kaufmanesque punking of us so I unzipped bag…and found a guy dressed up as the Six Million Dollar Man! Security grabbed him but he tossed them off, so I told him I just googled Lee &…Found out he’s not dead, so he paused then said Gandhi lied to him! A weird experience I’ll blog about at skepticblog.com.

Tagged as: BBC, Brian Dunning, Chris French, comedy, Michael Shermer, psychics, Science, Shirley Ghostman, skeptic, Skepticism, Skeptologists, Versus, videos, YouTube