:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 ::

The combination of Channel 4’s Magic Month and the recent posting of 80’s light entertainers has inspired me to post this picture of Paul Daniels and <sillyvoice pitch=+1_octave> the lovely Debbie McGeeeeeeee </sillyvoice>.



It’s good to see magic getting the air time it is at the moment, which I suppose we have David Blaine to thank for - even if he does seem to be a few cards short of a full deck these days.

I suppose magic is now the new Rock and Roll in the same cookery was a few years ago when Jamie Oliver first appeared and Gordon Ramsey’s Boiling Point was aired, or comedy was before that when Newman and Baddiel did that Wembley stadium gig, unheard of at the time but increasingly common, Lee Evens recently performed to a record crowd there, Eddie Izzard comparéd the We Know Where You Live gig for Amnesty International there and returns there for his Sexie tour later this year etc.

I remember my fascination with magic as a kid, always watching Paul Daniels on TV, owning two of his magic sets and practicing tricks on my family who would pretend to be impressed, and the occasional one-off spectacular like the David Copperfield stunts (who remembers him "walking through" the Great Wall of China?) or the Paul Daniels Halloween special where they faked it going wrong (the red help flag came out of the Iron Maiden too late for anyone to stop it slamming closed on him) or the rally driving thing where he escaped from the wooden crate probably in the same way Houdini pioneered in the early part of the centaury. I remember watching a film of Houdini’s life (probably this one) which from memory I was sure showed him dying on stage when a stunt went wrong. I only learned from another documentary years later that this isn’t how he died at all, he actually died of peritonitis resulting from appendicitis.

The recent re-emergence of magic on TV is great to see. Five’s Monkey Magic was a pretty good show, Channel 4’s new Sunday evening slot is good, although a little heavy on Blaine repeats. For me it’s Darren Brown who steals the show. The Russian Roulette Live was the most inspired and one of the most gripping bits of TV I’ve seen for years. OK, so it wasn’t magic as such, it wasn’t mind reading, it wasn’t just the power of suggestion (although he did say the word "One" deliberately clearly three times when asking the guy to load the gun and he did put it in chamber one. The only clue he had in choosing the rounds safe to fire against his head was the person who loaded the gun counting from one to six slowly and as steadily possible (difficult as he was clearly shitting himself). I guessed at camber one myself, but there was absolutely no way I would have been confident enough about that to fire ANY round at my head. The process used to pick the person to load the gun was fascinating in itself. But why anyone would want to do that in the first place is beyond me. There are only two possible outcomes for the person who loads it, you either kill someone and live with the guilt of doing that or you show yourself to be easily read, in fact the most easily read person out of thousands of applicants, I personally I don’t like the idea of that either. The fact that a lot of the press were unimpressed shows they didn’t really understand what was going on, a blank bullet was demonstrated to be just dangerous at close range during the program (although admittedly that could just as easily have been faked). The suggestion that other people will try it seems rediculus to me but I suppose only time will tell. If it takes out a few gun owners all the better really!

One thing is undeniable, this was much better TV than someone sitting in a box in London (hundreds of homeless people do that every day), standing on a stick or being frozen in carbonite a block of ice. I challenge David Blaine to do something half as interesting, the American fuck-wit doesn’t have the balls.

:: Dan 14.10.03 [Arc]    ::
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