David Blaine

blaine_box.jpg
So we went to see David Blaine down by Tower Bridge yesterday. I have to say that my expectations weren’t much, and rightly so. I expect that he’s taking on some kind of food somehow as he tries to spend 44 days in a relatively small perspex box, but he must be monumentally bored.
There was an interesting story in the Standard a couple of days ago about possibly the plug being pulled on the whole stunt. It’s certainly true that they’ve not done things right. The security has been poor, and the cynicism of the British public misread. I suppose the first inkling that I had that it wasn’t all right, was when I looked at Blaine’s official site and saw that there seemed to be no reference to a US TV network. That has to be staggering, since Blaine has become an ABC man to the best of my knowledge, pulling good ratings for his special. While a one or two hour special may result out of it, we all know what happens when it finishes, so no suspense.
I think that they’ve missed a commercial trick or two. There was no merchandise being sold there, aside from a few people setting up ice-cream vans and hotdog vendors. The whole site is poorly arranged – I would have expected an enormous banner detailing the event, particularly when you realise that the site is directly opposite the Tower of London, one the biggest tourism draws in the UK. Many visitors to the country may not know that Blaine is “performing.”
I guess too, that Blaine may have endeared himself to the public more if he’d done something a bit more traditional before embarking on this marathon. As we stood there looking, you couldn’t help feeling that a Houdini character would have instead been tied upside down from a burning rope over the edge of Tower Bridge. That would have been spectacular and stopped the traffic.
In actual fact, a Tuesday lunchtime saw a crowd of several hundred standing there staring, and realising that he still had another 27 days of boredom and starvation (!) to face.
In the meantime, Channel 4 are beginning to heavily trail their next magic stunt, and one that will get the audience watching. October 5 sees Derren Brown will play Russian Roulette live! Now that’s a stunt that has it all. It won’t take place in the UK as it’d be illegal, and if it weren’t really a trick, as I have no doubt it is, it wouldn’t take place “live.” It’s interesting that C4 are now putting the stunt out on October 5, while Brown’s own site lists the original date of October 26. If the Standard report referred to above is to be believed, that’s because executives at C4 have realised that they’ve misjudged the whole Blaine thing, and they’re probably looking at recouping the situation before the Blaine thing goes out of control.


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