Hanging Stunt Goes Wrong

[wind_up_toy]

Just read this article on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35481616

Not good and it makes you remember the element of danger that Alice has always carried with his shows.

[suziginajackson]

Don't forget that there have been at least three occasions when Alice's 'executions' have gone wrong, and he has been lucky to escape!

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/alice-co ... s-himself/

[killer wolf]

"Just a few years into this grizzly routine"

i've seen Coop loads of times and i've never seen a bear on stage, i hope he brings it back for this tour, would make a change from the snake.

[jacknifejohnny]

Great stories Suzi, but methinks they are just publicity ploys to sell tickets.

[Robbie]

In the case of the guillotine they are stories to sell tickets. In the early nineties I was in a rock horror band which played the working men's clubs in the north of England and we borrowed heavily from Alice's theatrics. We had a fully working guillotine illusion like the one Alice uses. For those who don't know how the illusion is done, there is a "failsafe" mechanism built in-basically the person being "decapitated" is protected from the blade at all times. I suspect there is a similar mechanism in the hanging illusion whereby the rope with the noose (rather than the piano wire which takes Alice's weight) would always detach from the top if something genuinely went wrong.

[mr.barlow]

The stories are all pure show biz hype.

Alice made and still makes a lot of money for a lot of people--including himself. Do you really think they would risk it all--on a nightly basis--by having him perform a stunt that could actually kill him?

I'm sure the props could suffer malfunctions and cause injury on occasion, but you can be assured that the golden goose and his neck are never going to fall victim to the guillotine blade or the hangman's noose.

I think for this new tour Alice should bring back the cannon prop! That I'd pay $50.00 to see!

[wind_up_toy]

I see the poor bugger is dead now.

Seems amazing that this could happen if there is 0% danger in Alice's mock deaths. I wonder if this has always been the case, especially the early years?

[killer wolf]

i doubt anything is 0%. as the saying goes, stuff happens. movie guns are supposed to be 100% harmless, and yet Brandon Lee's dead.