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I have read the Eddie Burke thing and it is not bad. However the best description of the trick is the Zapped book by Ricky Dunn.

I have the Ricky Dunn manuscript and agree that it is absolutely first rate - however, I would be interested to hear Eddie's take

I know this is an old thread but Mark Lewis and I were JUST talking about this routine today.

You will like this little clip - not a lot! But you will like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgRCOLwI ... xMH7WivD0=

I've had that done to me and it's great fun! Paul is still doig this routine in his stage shows currently touring the UK and it's as good as ever.

Paul is coming to Ireland next month, and I hope he does this. I would love my kids to see the master at the top of his game.

TonyB wrote:Paul is coming to Ireland next month, and I hope he does this. I would love my kids to see the master at the top of his game.

It's been a standard for his last couple of tours so would assume it's still there this year.

His Chop Cup routine is usually in that act as well. I'd pay the full price just to see those two routines.

and the cardboard box levitation, and note to walnut (you like this... nut a lot)

Right, off to look at tour dates

Have not read all the comments. But most people will work with you. The key is to make them feel that they are part of the show and not the butt of the joke. The most amount of trouble one can get into is when you use the actual electric chair. I've seen people refuse to sit back down. And I don't blame them.

Paul Daniels HIMSELF claimed to have tried the "real" chairs with no success. The way he does it now is the best way all around.

The "real" chairs are an awful idea.

And you don't need 'em. Borrow two chairs from the venue and all is sorted!

Paul often covers this point when he says he's sometimes accused of using special trick chairs, he just points to them disdainfully and says, 'Be honest, would I buy chairs like this?!'

I have performed the Electric Chairs or Hot Seat many times since 1973 as a stage/cabaret routine using my Sponge Balls routine.
But, instead of a chair, I use Roy Baker's Fall Apart Stool so I have to move it from one part of the stage to another several times as the spectator 'seems to think''some wires etc are under the stage floor. Finally when he moves it the stool's legs fall off.
In my 1978 Full evening show I had the deputy head of the local Junior school come up, one performance. He was a good 6 foot 2". He jumped so high at one point he landed on the stool, which swayed perilousy--remember the legs do fall off at the end.
It has never failed me. Odd spectators have jumped high & sometimes low, quick and sometimes slow BUT ALWAYS jumped.

I have a friend in the Scout movement who used to book me for shows and always requested--'Can you do the trick where the man keeps jumping up off that stool? I have watched you do it for 30 years and still cannot see how the b****y thing works'!!

My friend, the late Val Andrews wrote 6 valuable pages on the Hot Seat and its variations in his book--'Simplicity, Audacity & Bluff (Magico Magazine publication-1979)
Then David de Val published his version with 5 chairs.
Supreme Magic put out a small booklet on the method.

But my favourite was a small 9 page booklet--'The Famous Hot Seat & other Hilarious Stunts' put out by Eddie Burke when he ran Magitrix.
In it you will find one variation I always intended to use but never got the time to develop. 'Bathing The Baby'.
3 or 4 gentlemen are seated on chairs. Each has a plastic or rag doll..a box of Talcum Powder , a nappy and a big safety pin.
On the whistle they are to bath etc the baby. Well suddenly one baby flies up into the air--then one by one they all do this as the fathers
attempt to bath the baby, use the talc, put on the nappy and pin it up. Even the fathers can be made to leap up as per usual.

Oh another flash has just come into my mind. Years ago in a cabaret (on TV) a young German magician did the Hot Seat but with his Linking Rings. Everytime a spectator touch one the rings--he jumped or dropped the ring on the floor.

Allen Tipton