talkmagic.co.uk

Did anyone else see Death Wish Live! on E4 last night? Billed as:

Cheating The Gallows. "Alex Zane presents the first show in this week- long live special event featuring some of the UK and US's top daredevils taking part in some daring and dangerous stunts. Tonight's show sees escapologist Jonathan Goodwin, from Dirty Tricks and Seven Stupidest Things to Escape From, attempt to 'Cheat the Gallows' and avoid being hung live on television

and he didn’t escape so ended up being hung until they cut him down. Someone should really have a word with Jonathan - he's doing things the hard way! All being well he's not hurt too badly as he has another appointment:

Death Wish Live! 10pm on Friday 3rd February on E4.
Buried Alive. "Alex Zane hosts the final show in E4's week long live stunt extravaganza. Jonathan Goodwin takes on his second astonishing stunt of the week as he attempts to escape from a coffin buried underground and covered in 3 tonnes of cement. Will Jonathan emerge from the grave before time runs out?"

(Thanks as always to Magicweek.co.uk for the quotes)

The guy really is fearless, isn't he. Daft as a brush is perhaps more accurate, though!

I think he's having a go at something equally scary on Friday.

I don't really know about escapology etiquette, but did anyone else think there was something a bit exposure-ish about Jonathan describing the methods of getting out of handcuffs? Fair enough, the eagle eyed spectator would probably be able to see what was going on during the performance, but to me there is a big difference between that and describing/demonstrating the methods used.
Also, and this is just my opinion, I got the impression from watching the show that he fully intended to fail, and this stunt was more about him showing that he could survive being hung.
That said, after the slightly awkward 45 minutes of one word answer interviews with that presenter bloke, I found the actual stunt quite exciting.

My heart was in my mouth when he went flying up and his legs were flailing. I wanted him to do it

Well good luck to him for Friday (I think) Night's escape, lets hope he can do it this time!

His stuff is very much Blue Peter meets Scrap Heap Challenge and (showing my warped sense of humour) I liked the warm up routines where the wardrobe full of pots and pans, tinned goods and kitchen utensils fell on him but the prize of the night had to be his long suffering Dad's comments along the lines of, 'When I think of all I did to put you through college.....'

I'm a bit dubious myself...

Don't get me wrong, it was great TV, though I think the 55 minute build-up to the final stunt was a little overdrawn.

He did handle the handcuffs before being shackled, as he demonstrated how to get out of them with a shiv. As soon as I saw this I thought he'd drop it during his escape attempt... and lo-and-behold, he did!

Jonathan is a very good escapologist, and what makes him better than most is that he doesn't mind showing us his failures too. This makes him seem more human than most performers, and so fires up our interest in him.

What he has succeeded in doing is ensuring that I watch the rest of the series, and I make sure I am glued to the TV on Friday night when he makes his escape from the concrete-covered grave. I'm sure no one who saw last nights' show will want to miss Friday's either.

That said, I might just watch the last 10 minutes and skip all the build-up for the rest of the shows...

Cheers!

Yes the Hour Long show was a bit long-winded, but I enjoyed it. I will be watching it tonight, just to see "The Pain Men" being eaten alive by animals

*Insert Evil Laugh*

Apparently E4 have had 'a dozen' complaints about the hanging, Mediawatch UK have condemned it as a sick stunt, other un-named groups are worried that people will be tempted to try and copy it, and it was even mentioned on the morning radio news. An all-round success, I'd say !

It's intriguing that Derren Brown had more complaints over his Séance programme than for Russian Roulette which led him to comment that folks obviously don’t mind too much if he blows his brains out as long as he doesn’t tinker with the 'dark side of things'. Jonathan's amazing self levitation on Monday seems to be more acceptable than either of those as he drew fewer complaints than either of Derren's programmes!

Some people will complain about anything!

The thing that really sums up Jonathan Goodwin's unique style of, er, performance for me is this quote from Teletext, page 131. "I was told it was dangerous and stupid and it turns out that the advice was right." Fantastic stuff!

I caught the end of the Pain Men on E4+1 last night. Not exactly fantastic from a pain point of view, but the squabbling and frustrated losing of tempers was very funny. These are the same idiots that tried to inhale a lit butane lighter flame on Dirty Sanchez aren't they?

ace of kev wrote:Yes the Hour Long show was a bit long-winded, but I enjoyed it. I will be watching it tonight, just to see "The Pain Men" being eaten alive by animals

*Insert Evil Laugh*

It was about as exciting as watching Rolf harris in Animal hospital.
Except more people get bitten on Animal Hospital.


Steve Erwin does this and much, much more , every day.

daleshrimpton wrote:Steve Erwin does this and much, much more , every day.

Yep—this guy is seriously nuts, but very enjoyable.

Unlike the Death Wish team, who to my mind are neither of the above.

In fact, what is the actual raison d'etre of the show, someone please explain?

Death Wish - live

I should hope so, if he's not live it would not be very good.

Sorry.

Kati

The total of complaints has risen slightly http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/ ... ng-stunt-/

Oh, I love this! The complainants were frightened about the possibility of people copying him!

"Hello, Channel 4? Yes, I'd like to complain about Death Wish Live because I'm frightened that people are stupid."

I wonder if they should have put in a disclaimer, like at the start of The Heist? "This show will not make you hang yourself."?

This should have actually been called 'Death Wish Almost Live' as whilst hunting for a bit more information on the show I found this posted on a different forum by one of the Adjudicators/Jury!!

'I can confirm beyond any doubt that it was indeed live with a 10minute delay. Obviously after Jonathon failed to escape (you may have noticed his shimmy pinging out of his hand- we certainly did as we were about 6 feet away from him) as members of the jury we were ushered out back to the green room, where E4 was on and Kyra was just putting on the handcuffs.'

So there ya have it!! E4 knew exactly what they were showing and the camera black-out was purely for effect!! Good show though!!