Monday March 30, 2009
The great escape
By RIZAL JOHAN
WHAT would you be willing to do if your hero is the immortalised escape artiste Harry Houdini? How would you even begin to emulate Houdini’s dangerous feats and other contemporary escape artists like David Blaine?
Well, one way around it is to make it educational. After all, has anyone really studied how one would escape if you’re covered by 200,000 bees, locked in a box on top of a washing machine?
One man can give you the answer because he has done exactly that. His name is Jonathan Goodwin and you can catch his dangerous and educational antics on Discovery Channel’s One Way Out which premieres this Wednesday.
Host Jonathan Goodwin goes behind the science of an escape artist in One Way Out. “The show is about, obviously, a certain amount of escaping you will have seen before as a performance, but also what you don’t get to see which is the process behind it – how you rehearse and prepare and learn stuff like that,” said Goodwin in a conference call interview.
Goodwin, who was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, was inspired to become an escape artiste after he read a book about Houdini when he was seven years old. He recounted how he tried his first “escape” at the same age when he was on a family holiday and had asked his father, who used to be a policeman and a fireman, to help tie him up.
“I remember it very vividly, I was on vacation with my mum and dad and I read a book on Houdini and I finished it. And we were on a boating holiday and I remember going up to my dad with a big length of rope and saying, ‘Dad, tie me up,’ and he looked at me very critically, and then I think he realised what I meant and so he tied me up, because my dad’s good like that,” said the 29-year-old.
Goodwin, however, grew disillusioned with becoming an escape artiste after discovering that it involved trickery and instead, turned his attention to his studies. He graduated from Middlesex University with a degree in Drama and Theatre, and got a job as a television producer.
Ironically, Goodwin would once again take on the mantle of escape artiste after working with one in his capacity as producer and it “reawakened” his desire to become an escape artist again. He went on to become a bit of an attraction in Britain with his escape antics and caused a bit of an outcry even when one of his acts went wrong live on national TV – Goodwin had attempted to escape while being hanged.
“It went wrong, and I didn’t escape, and I was hanged on television. The jeopardy of that would seem to be lethal. Everybody knows that hanging is a lethally dangerous thing. But here’s the thing; I do an awful lot of research into all of this sort of stuff, and what kills you when you get hanged is the drop and the stop – it breaks the vertebrae.
“I didn’t do that. I was lifted by a counterweight that weighed only a little bit more than I did. So I went up in the air and slowly, it still hurts like you wouldn’t believe. It’s not something that I would recommend anybody try. I mean it’s horrifically dangerous, but not lethally dangerous if you do it in the right way.”
Yes, Goodwin will try dangerous things and most times, come out looking embarrassed and in a lot of pain, but he is careful to draw the line when it threatens his life.
“My philosophy is, I do everything for real, all of the escapes that I do I’m genuinely doing those escapes and sometimes I get out and sometimes I don’t. And so if I was going to risk death, I would be colossally stupid. So my idea is to pare down the jeopardy to something where I could get injured or it could be something very humiliating. The thing that I’m risking is never death, but it could be extreme pain.”
And that is what viewers can expect from his show One Way Out which Goodwin describes as a cross between “Jackass meets Houdini”.
Goodwin, however, is not alone in his exploits as he is accompanied by university mate Mikey Nelson and master builder/engineer Terry Stroud.
“Mikey is basically the guy that ties me up in the show and he helps kind of film everything as well and makes it look pretty,” said Goodwin.
As for Stroud, his engineering knowhow helped Goodwin perform such stunts or build things in order for Goodwin to perform them, such as a human catapult. Stroud, who sat in at the interview with Goodwin, says things can get pretty crazy when you work with an escape artiste.
“We were talking about some things and Jonathan said: ‘You know, there’s this escape that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve never done it yet,’ and he says, ‘It’s really simple,’ and he says, ‘You’ll build a concrete wall that’s a foot-and-a-half wide and it’s like eight feet high,’ and he says, ‘And I’m standing on it in a straitjacket. So my legs are free and all I have on is a straitjacket and I have to escape and get off of it. But here’s the trick, I’m hooked up to an IV anesthetic drip.’
“And so far we haven’t convinced any producer to try that one,” said Stroud.
Goodwin is definitely up to doing some wacky things for the TV show and interestingly enough, he has not got any insurance on himself in case something goes seriously wrong.
“I actually, and this is embarrassing to admit, don’t have a life insurance policy. I have tried on several different occasions during my career to get someone to insure me, and on each one of those occasions I have been met with laughter at the other end of the line. Insurers laugh at me so, no I don’t.”
Making the documentary for Goodwin is more than just an adrenalin rush and he risks danger in order to learn things than show off his ability to escape.
“I genuinely have the kind of mind that I think is fitting for Discovery Channel in that I want to know how things work. I want to know if things are possible. We usually find out something cool in every episode.
“I guess in realistic terms, people ask why I do what I do, and the closest sort of proper answer, without being flippant, is that it’s like any kind of extreme sport. I’m not a masochist.
“I don’t take pleasure in hurting myself at all. I’m trying to escape from the situation, and it’s all about the risk.”
One Way Out premieres on Discovery Channel (551) this Wednesday at 9pm.
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