Latest / The Magic Guys / Cheating Death: Jonathan Goodwin on Escapes, Risks, and Recovery

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Cheating Death: Jonathan Goodwin on Escapes, Risks, and Recovery · The Magic Guys

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They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys.
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Good evening good morning or possibly even good night friends welcome to the magic guys episode,
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232 it's a special day doug khan it is bright and early in las vegas thank you
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for being here say hi Good morning, Nick K.
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You look great for someone waking up so bright and early. Are you normally up this early?
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I'm not, but I'm a professional fake it till you make it kind of guy.
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So, you know, we make it work at 5.30 in the morning in Las Vegas. Let's do this thing.
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Absolutely. And now we've made it. Some folks are staying up late for it. Scotty P.
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Guys are in the chat. Good to see you all here, Scotty T. P.
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We have Tim Askin. We have Pete Booth. Good to see you, bud.
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It's been a while. Oh, Adonis, good to see you here, bud.
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Guys, he never sleeps. Guys, I'm like crazy excited for who's coming in today.
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I saw this amazing talent lecture at Magic Live, and for me,
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it was the best thing that Magic Live had to offer.
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If you don't know who I'm talking about, you've seen him cheat death on Britain's Got Talent.
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You've seen him cheat death on America's Got Talent Extreme and The Illusionist.
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He's reinvented himself as a writer, hypnotherapist and the founder of Project Wire.
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His story is one of courage, creativity and resilience. So friends,
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please join me in welcoming Mr. Jonathan Goodwin.
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Hello. How are you guys? Buddy, so excited to have you on the show.
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Like, thankfully, I was able to get out all my boyish kind of stardom moment that you have before.
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But for those of you that don't know who you are, please, Jonathan,
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tell us who you are and what you do.
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So i am my name is jonathan goodwin i
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am a retired magician and theatrical
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stunt performer a lot of people know me for doing
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dangerous and ridiculous escape stunts but i'm also a magic consultant and author
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and i wear many hats even though i'm not wearing one today it does feel kind
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of wholesome having three bald guys back in the podcast then it doug testify.
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We should give a card we should be card carrying magi,
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we're going to start making stickers called the Bald Brothers or something of that nature,
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as you know I have a thousand questions so I want to take it straight back to
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the beginning I've had the pleasure of reading your book The Methods to My Madness
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I was so excited to get a copy of this signed by you when I was at Magic Live and.
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I think let's just take it from the very beginning. At the ripe age of seven
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years old, you're inspired by an amazing magician that was called Norman or Nomando.
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Tell us about that journey of you first getting into magic.
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Yeah, I lived in a village that was incredibly small and there were no kids my age.
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And so my mom was always trying to get me to do different things and enrolling
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me in different clubs and classes and this that and the other and and one one
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week she said oh there's a magic class at your.
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Local technical college do you want to go and i
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said i'll be for kids and i was seven at the
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time when i said that um uh but
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i i gave it all and i was right by the way i was i think it was
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the oldest thing there i love that the perception of
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magic is ruined by age seven yeah i
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just love i just love what were you supposed to say like
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there's a magic class is there a bar yeah i
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know i i guess you know
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i i would have been interested in in learning like
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the the the real stuff but i i think in
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my head i thought it would be like you know play play
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you know sort of magic set magic
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tricks or whatever and it was this
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old guy his name was norman pepperall uh
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and he just wanted to
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pass on you know what he knew and and probably earn a few quid at the you know
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at the same time and i became he essentially became my my first proper friend
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when i was growing up you know he was he was a cantankerous grumpy.
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Lovely man and we we
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became firm friends and i was really the only
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student that consistently went week after week
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after week and and it was like i mean you know you guys have had this experience
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that you know when when you kind of get those little nuggets of of revelation
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taking you from a complete novice
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into you know having the world sort of completely exposed to you um,
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Every one of those little revelations is incredible, isn't it?
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And it was like that. It was sort of that incredible gift week after week.
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So I was so excited for every Saturday to roll around to go and learn and then
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also to kind of show the things that I'd been working on in the week.
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It was an amazing experience.
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And I think that having a mentor as a young magician is not something that should be sniffed at.
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I think it's the best way to learn, for sure.
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So if you can be fortunate enough to find somebody to actually teach you and
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be consistent with that, then you're very lucky. And I certainly was.
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Agree completely. The best way to learn.
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Yeah yeah now as as
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your career went on and you were sort of as you got older there was a
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very interesting phone call which you got from from the one
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and only ali bongo could you tell us about what that how that progressed and
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how that phone call came about yeah there used to be a magic magazine in in
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the uk called abra which these days i mean it's actually really remarkable to think about it,
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that it was a hard copy, weekly published magazine.
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I used to get it through the mail, and I loved it. It was amazing.
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It was kind of like A5 sort of size. It was not massive, but there was some
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really great stuff in there.
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And one day, I came across Ali's address, and I wrote to him,
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not because I had anything particularly to ask him.
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It was sort of the correspondence equivalent of sort of tapping someone on the
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shoulder and just going, hi.
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But he didn't write back to me. He called me. And probably, I mean,
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by that time, I was probably about 10.
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And he spoke to me for about 40 minutes or so.
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And it really sort of tells you a lot about the man,
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that he would take the time to talk to somebody at my level,
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like like that but he was an amazing
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chap and i was very fortunate enough to get to
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know him as a friend and and and work with him when i
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was when i was you know much older but he said there were a couple of things
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that he said to me in that early call which i sort of carried with me and really
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they they impacted much of the rest of my career he said to me if you could do magic with anything,
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which if you think about it, is true.
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And so if you want to be a good magician, you have to know how everything works.
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And I think that that is such brilliant advice, especially from the point of
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view of being a creative magician,
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somebody who's going to create their own material rather than just doing other people's tricks.
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And then the other thing that he said to me was, if anybody ever asks you,
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can you do something, say yes, and then worry about it.
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Which, you know, I, the, the number of people that I know, not just in magic,
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but in, in life generally who put off doing the thing that they want to do,
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because in some way they're like, I'm not ready for that yet.
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Or, you know, I, I, I'll do it.
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I'll do it when, you know, and when sort of is an ever, is an ever,
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is a sort of a false peak really, isn't it?
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Whereas if you say yes, then you have a little commitment.
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You put your foot out of the door, and then you can start to deal with all of
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the things that you need to in order to make it happen.
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So I think both of those things were very, very sage thoughts,
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especially to give to somebody the age that I was.
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And yeah, they've really helped, I think.
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So what I'm also very interested in is that you were practicing magic at that
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young age, but then there was at one point that you obviously got inspired by doing escapes.
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Now, was that due to a book that your father gave you?
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It was several things, really. I wrote a book about Houdini when I was a kid that my dad had.
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I also went through a bit of an arc with Houdini because the character and the
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myth of him is a very attractive and appealing idea.
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It's, I think, one of the reasons why his legend has sustained as long as it
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has when a lot of his contemporaries' names are lost to time.
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But i you know once you sort of
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really dig in you realize that actually he
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was just a massive bullshitter and and
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and that much of the stuff that that is
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sort of reported to have happened didn't happen or
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certainly not in the way that that you know that that
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sort of history is remembered and so i
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i kind of put him to one side for
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a little for a little while there was a quote of
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his which i which i kept that
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was quite important to me i i typed it up i had like a little amstrad pc or
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other my mom and dad did and and i typed it up this this quote and it was on
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my cork board and then years later i got it tattooed on my forearm and and and
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that is so i struggled than fought.
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I have done and abstained.
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I've tortured my body and risked my life only for that to have one plank on
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the stage where they must fall back and cry master.
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And then I have the signature or a copy of the signature.
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And as much as I sort of became disillusioned with Houdini,
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it took me a while to realize that actually,
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even if somebody that you admire
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isn't the real deal if
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they inspired you it doesn't
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really matter if it was real or not and so that was my sort of full circle journey
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with with houdini but really the the you know the reason that i that i got into
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escapes sort of fundamentally was that i i i grew to really dislike it.
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And I know that sounds weird that you would then take up the mantle of something
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that you fundamentally dislike.
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But it wasn't that I just thought it was rubbish.
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I thought that there was hope to.
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Sort of reinvigorate it if if you will
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to to come up with with new ways of
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of creating and performing escape
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artistry that wasn't you know
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as as sort of stayed as as the stuff
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that i was seeing you know essentially it
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was it was a it was probably like a five minute thought
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process but that for that five minutes then
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completely changed my life because you know
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as far as i was aware you know
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escape artists always escape just in the nick
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of time you know quite often the jeopardy is
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death you know or or
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or something that's really very
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extreme and and they also you are
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restrained by things that people
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have no point of reference for how difficult it is to escape from
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you know most people have never been in a straitjacket so
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i don't know why i would clap you escaping
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from something that i literally have no point of reference of
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how difficult that is and actually i think the thing about a straitjacket is
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it's it's inverted it's gone from the thing that
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you know when houdini first sort of glommed onto the idea of it it was you know
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known as this inescapable thing and now the only time the public come into contact
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with a straitjacket is when they see a performer pulling one off like it's a sweater.
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And so it's something that they know is escapable.
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So those were my sort of criticisms.
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And so then it was quite a simple process for me to go, well,
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then let's invert that. So you would not always escape.
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And the idea of failure being theatrically valid, certainly on television,
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that the jeopardy would be
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not death but pain or humiliation or
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something that would just be generally unpleasant but
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therefore believable and that i would escape from both jeopardies and restraints
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that that that were familiar to people so the very first one that i did was
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that I essentially recreated a version of the Andre Cole table of death escape,
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but it was essentially.
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Tied shirtless to a bed with a bed sheet spread out above me,
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sort of from the posts of the bed.
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And then my dad, who was my assistant in those days, put a hot iron on top of
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the bed sheet, and I had to escape before it burned through and hit me in the
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chest, which I didn't do.
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And and so that was the very first thing that i kind of filmed and how old were
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you when that was happening,
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Yeah, I was about 20, I think.
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I was wondering if you were 12. I was older.
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And the fun thing about that whole process was, essentially,
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I became good friends with Derren Brown, and through Derren,
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I became friends with the production company and the people that made his show.
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And they made an escape artist special, which they decided to make like a sort
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of David Blaine escapes kind of, you know, that sort of street magic,
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mysterious range of character. And it didn't work at all.
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So through no fault of the escape artist. Was there an audition?
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No, no, no, no, not involved in the slightest. But it was the same production company.
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Right. And so I.
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You know, I was a cocky 20-year-old, emailed the
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executive producer and told him that i thought his show wasn't
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really good but but gave him the take that
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i've just sort of given you about how it could be better and i
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didn't realize but he was casting another show and
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so he said film something and and and send it to
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me so that's what the the the reason for the eye
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of a hot iron escape was and and and
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you know there's an interesting dissection to
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that which is this it's it's hollywood
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science you could leave a hot iron on top
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of a bed sheet all day long and it would never burn through the reason
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that the reason that you know an iron burns your clothes if you
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leave it on there for too long it's because there's an ironing board underneath that
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traps the heat in one place whereas with no
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ironing board the heat will just go through the fabric and so
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the iron burning through the
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sheet was a magic trick we had to come
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up with a method for creating that effect and
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that was me that was me and ali
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bongo in a in a rehearsal studio for probably
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about two days with sheets and different irons
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of different weights and different things until we
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came up with a with something that looked pretty good and which which begs the
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question you know at that point that iron didn't have to be hot if you know
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if it's not burning through for real and yet it was because as much as I was
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convinced that we could fake the burn through.
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I didn't think we'd fake the burn.
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And so I did it actually twice because the first time I didn't get burned and
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I wanted to, I know that's very perverse, but I was essentially proving a point.
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And if I'm anything, I'm very bullheaded.
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And so, so yeah, that was my entry into the world of escaping. thing.
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Yeah, if I could just say to your point with regards to Harry Houdini,
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it was Louis Demartos who in the foreword of your book said that describing
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Jonathan Goodwin as a modern day Harry Houdini would be almost a bit of an insult. And,
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I think that's very high praise for what you've achieved in your life, most definitely.
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Now, we do have a question here for your TV work.
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And Scotty P is asking, was it you that came up with the name,
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The Seven Stupid Things to Escape From?
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Is that Scott Penrose? No, probably not.
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It was me. i
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think originally when i pitched the the special
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it was 10 and and
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then we worked out that that essentially for
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an hour 10 we would we would
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end up making making them too too short so we worked out that seven was the
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magic number let's fill in the blanks a little bit you have the vision and boy
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do you have a vision and congratulations on that because that's what makes high
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art versus as being maybe even a good craftsman.
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You see something that can be done differently to let the public appreciate
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it or think on a deeper level. So you got that vision.
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You swing at the plate for this special. How do you get to coming up with titles
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for a television special?
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So I sent the video of the hot iron to the producer and he then gave me a segment
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in a series that he was producing.
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That show was called Dirty Tricks. It was for UK terrestrial television.
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And then my little bit was probably one of the most successful bits in that show.
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And so they gave me the opportunity to write and pitch a special.
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And so that was the seven stupidest things to escape from.
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At the time, there were a lot of, you know, top 10 funniest animal video type
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shows, you know, where they essentially are just clip shows and they get sort
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of celebrities to kind of comment on them.
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And so it was sort of a show that was kind of lightly poking fun at that genre
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because the whole thing was ridiculous.
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And, you know, things that I was doing in that special were kind of silly.
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It is one of the things that I, you know, from early in my career that actually holds up.
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It's an interesting thing, the seven stupidest things to escape from.
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And what was amazing was the whole thing was created like it was truly homemade.
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And all of the people that worked on it, of which there were many,
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they all agreed to not take a credit at the end of the show so that we could make the credits.
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Things like thanks to my mom thanks to
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my aunt elaine yada yada like really really
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very very homespun uh when actually
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it was a highly produced tv show so yeah it was fun that was that was basically
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my first solo project on tv yeah if i could make mention of a couple of the
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uh just a couple from from that time you know just to show the level of creativity
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because i guess people would just generically think,
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we're going to do an escape or
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I'm going to need handcuffs going to need a straitjacket. It's like, well,
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What if we put Jonathan on the 15th floor of a building and we chained him to
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a trolley, like the type of thing you would like real furniture in.
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And then he's naked and chained to the trolley. So he's got to escape by the
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time he gets to the ground level.
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Great idea. Print it, you know?
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Yeah, it was, you know, the impetus is really the jeopardy, you know,
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because you've got the two elements in escapes. You've got the restraint,
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the challenge part, and then the what are you risking part.
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And the risk does, you know, it doesn't have to be death. You know,
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it could be humiliation.
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So we created a surprise party of family and friends that were coming to kind
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of jump out and say surprise.
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But little did they know the surprises on me. And I was hurtling towards them
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in an elevator completely stark naked, desperately trying to put my clothes
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back on, which I didn't do.
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So and that was the other part of that was
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that you know if you if you can if
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you create the conceit well enough then failure
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is okay and what it and what it has
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the the the factor of doing is that
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it it gives you that level of i don't know what's
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going to happen here which which was missing
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i think from escapes you know most of the if you
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see an escape artist escape you know they're
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going to escape and and and so it basically
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takes all of the all of the excitement from what should be quite an exciting
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genre away you know and and you wouldn't if you you know if you were a soccer
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fan and you knew that your team was going to win every every match within the
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last two minutes of the game.
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You you would be maybe exciting and great for
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a couple of matches but after a while you'd be like okay i i don't
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need to do this anymore and i think that's where we were with escapes
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so it doesn't work in
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in a theater show though i have to i have to
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add that caveat that that that works
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on television but what are
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the reasons what are the reasons for that jonathan like as far
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as like why is it so great for television in this sense but
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for his theater like is it because there is
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like you should be failing on the stage like what
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what's the um i i i think that i
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think that there's there's a couple of reasons i think that that when we watch
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television there is a level of of separation which which also provides as a
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level of a comfort blanket whereas in in theater they're present there There is, it's a lot more raw.
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So I think that the level of discomfort that you get is certainly amplified.
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And then also people have paid, you know, probably quite a lot of money to see
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something which, you know, they sort of are hoping for professionalism.
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And and so it just
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it just i've done it a few times and intentionally done
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it a few times i i i used to do an escape
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where i would have somebody blindfolded
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holding a rounders bat like a softball bat which unbeknownst
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to that person had a ribbon attached to it the other
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end of the ribbon was attached to my nipple ring and
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so and i was handcuffed so i had to escape and
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cut the ribbon before they would take a swipe with
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the with the softball bat and and and essentially
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rip my nipple off and i there
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were there was a more on on a couple of occasions
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i attempted essentially to create the illusion that that had gone wrong and
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that's about the closest that i ever got to it to it working but it was still
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not something that you'd want to do in a consistent way.
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I love that dynamic. I love that you're playing in that ballpark.
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I'm wondering, what about pausing an escape?
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You're in the moment, and so now you call your stagehands out,
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there's something wrong or something like that, where you don't actually fail,
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but there's a sense that it could fail, and then you overcome that thing.
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That hurdle to succeed after the
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speed i think i think that i think
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essentially that there's lots of there's lots of stuff
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that can be done that ultimately
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what you're looking for is is that that element of the height of the hyper real
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i i want some i never did this but i always thought that it would be lovely
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to do a version it's quite a cruel thing to do but in in my early days of
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performing i i i cared a lot less about about you know the comfort of the audience.
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And i i always like
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the idea of doing a water tank escape where you
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have an audience member on stage that is briefed that
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it is their job to let you out if there's a problem
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you know with with the caveat that you
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know houdini always used to have that you
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know the guy standing by with the axe or whatever which is actually a really
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stupid way of getting somebody out of a water tank if there's a problem because
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you're coming out with a you know a ton of water and through glass on stay i
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mean it's just that's a nightmare with a guy with an axe on the other side well exactly.
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And and and you know so here's the
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key you know put it in the guy's top
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pocket if there's a problem just just
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let me out and and and in that moment you
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steal the key back out so the guy
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thinks he's got the key but actually he doesn't have it in his pocket and then
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and then later you give the signal of i'm in trouble and watch the guy you know
27:04
panic because in because in that moment that you know you can have the you know
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the the stagehand acting that this has all gone wrong.
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But actually, in that moment, the guy will believe that it's gone wrong and
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will not need to act. And so you get that sort of heightened realism.
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I think it's a bit of a cruel thing to do.
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I'm not advocating that. But it was an interesting idea.
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So yeah, I think there's lots of ways of kind of wringing the sponge and creating realism.
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And then the other one, the solution to it in the theater show, which I came up with,
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which is that you just change to the narrative arc so that traditionally the
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narrative arc is, I have to escape before the bad thing happens.
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But what about, it's inherently disappointing because you're,
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you know, we all want to see the exciting thing.
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And the exciting thing is a man sort of jumping out of the way of the bad thing.
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So my thought process was, well, why don't we have the bad thing happen?
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And I've got to escape in order to stop it.
28:12
And so I've done quite a few of those different things.
28:15
Probably the thing I'm most well-known for might end up being that I did a straight
28:22
jacket escape where I was doused in fuel and set completely on fire.
28:26
And so I had to escape from the jacket in order to put myself out.
28:29
And so at that point, a few things happen.
28:33
You get that excitement no matter what.
28:37
But also, So there isn't a point where the people can go, oh,
28:42
well, I bet it was a trick because I'm clearly on fire.
28:46
You know, the first seven rows of the audience, you can feel the heat in a theater show.
28:51
So that helps as well. There was a lot.
28:55
It was a lot of time that I spent thinking about, you know, wriggling and getting
29:01
out of different things.
29:03
Well, I mean, I have an abundance of my favorites of yours, which I will make mention in a moment.
29:09
But before I do, we have a question from Peter Booth. And that is,
29:13
what is the most oppressive escape you've seen someone else do?
29:18
Ooh, that's a good one. I...
29:22
The escapes that I'm sort of jealous of, probably there are a couple of Robert
29:29
Gallops that were brilliant.
29:32
Robert Gallop was and is a brilliant American escape artist,
29:40
and he did a couple of specials.
29:43
He was the person that first did the burning rope straitjacket.
29:52
In a way that it was shot so beautifully the
29:56
problem with with that quite often
29:59
is that you know the people
30:02
that did it originally reliably informed that alan allen who was the first person
30:09
to set fire to the rope in the straight jacket escape literally was just doing
30:15
it for real and that he kind of timed it and the rope was you know he knew how
30:20
long the rope would would burn,
30:22
which to my mind is incredibly stupid
30:26
i can say that because alan's passed
30:29
but you know and then you you know the people that sort of put the steel cable
30:34
through the the the rope is much safer but then you don't get that moment of
30:40
it breaking and gallop did a version of it which was lovely which was that he
30:45
was hanging from the side of a building,
30:47
but they put the camera essentially.
30:50
Inside the building.
30:52
So they had a very close-up image of the escape, which quite often you don't get sort of long lensy.
31:00
And he was wearing a harness, and there was a safety line hanging next to him
31:06
so that he escapes and clipped into that harness and
31:12
just as the rope burns through. And so you get this beautiful fish tail.
31:18
And I always thought that was great. That's a really lovely escape.
31:23
Thanks, Peter, for the question.
31:26
The most original escape I've ever seen is where you escape from inside a cow.
31:34
Yeah. Well, you haven't seen it. You're a liar because there are not many people
31:38
that have seen it because it was never broadcast.
31:40
Uh it's one of the is one of
31:43
the few that channel four in the uk is has a reputation for
31:46
being the channel that basically broadcast anything and and
31:50
then when they saw that footage they were like yeah we
31:53
can't show that uh and which is
31:56
which is odd because usually if you're a
31:59
creative person that you know at some level from idea
32:02
to realization there is compromise
32:06
that's part of the process and what you
32:09
end up with never quite looks like what you imagined except
32:12
that that looked exactly like i imagined
32:15
it would and and so it was
32:18
quite frustrating because we told them what it was going to be very clearly
32:21
and and they went yeah okay that sounds great and
32:24
then when they saw it they were like no we can't we can't is
32:27
it is it true this inspiration came from the jim carrey
32:30
ace ventura moment sort of
32:33
i think maybe the image of the ending because i escaped through
32:36
the cow's back passage but i the the really the inspiration came from from the
32:42
houdini story about him that you there's a there's a story about him being tied
32:48
up inside a dead whale which i think is not true i think that i think.
32:54
It seems more likely to have been a turtle, but there was certainly something
32:59
that had washed up that everybody was talking about because it was a big,
33:04
unusual sea creature that had washed up.
33:07
And Houdini decided to sort of capitalize on that and put himself inside it and get sewn up.
33:15
Yeah, so that was the sort of inspiration because we can't get a whale or a
33:20
turtle. But it was actually during the famous mad cow disease in the UK.
33:27
So it was a very, very difficult thing to organize for us to do.
33:32
And yeah, I think maybe if I went back and had my time again, I might not have done it.
33:37
Because it was a bit of a thing.
33:41
That sounds like an understatement. Yeah, no take back, please.
33:46
I can't say backwards. I think one of the funniest excerpts that I read regarding
33:50
this escape was that your hand came through.
33:54
And during this point in your career, your father was part of every escape you did.
33:58
So when your hand came through, your dad just came and shook your hand and was
34:02
like, good, and just swapped off.
34:05
Yeah, he's a bit of an accidental comedy genius, my dad. When he's trying to be funny, he's not.
34:11
But at most other moments, he's a pretty funny guy.
34:14
And so yeah he shook my hand through the
34:17
ass of a cow um that is
34:20
true so so as
34:22
far as dance goes you've been pushing the limits
34:25
for a long time you've had uh you've escaped uh you've been buried alive you've
34:31
been covered in bees even attacked by sharks but is there a stunt that that
34:36
you created that's sort of more memorable in in a sense of a challenge i don't know it's difficult,
34:44
Every single one of them had their own sort of specific challenge.
34:49
I think the thing that I did that I'm most proud of that was maybe the most
34:55
difficult thing I did was the semi-final stunt that I did for America's Got Talent,
35:01
where it was a zipline 75 foot in the air from a burning rope, and I was from my teeth.
35:09
Because that was something that I took a long time to learn how to do and to
35:13
train to do. And it sucked.
35:17
And it's one of those things where, you know, it wasn't a magic trick.
35:21
There wasn't anything that, you know, if I had let go or, you know,
35:27
or if the rope had burned through, I would have fallen.
35:30
And yet it went off exactly as planned. So that I was quite proud of.
35:36
Yeah. all the iron jaw stuff that i've read
35:39
in the book thus far is just staggering like it
35:43
really is even the fact that you want to suspend the spectator
35:46
sitting in a chair from your feet while you're holding a jaw
35:50
like is that physically possible certainly yeah
35:53
it is you know you you would be amazed
35:56
at the the you know the limits of
35:59
the human body i i mean it would suck there's
36:03
no two words about it would be very painful but but
36:06
it's certainly something that the human being can track
36:09
and train to do and you know and it is it's
36:12
a very rarely seen circus feat
36:15
but but over the years people have done a
36:18
lot but you know it tends to be you know
36:21
just a display of of of sort
36:25
of aerial beauty you know it's another way of hanging onto
36:27
a line or or something in in
36:30
the circus and and i thought
36:33
the idea of making an escape it is
36:37
it would just be such a great image apart from
36:40
anything else and so i did it a few different times
36:43
i've done it on stage i did it on broadway actually i did a version of it where
36:47
i was statically hanging from a burning rope over spikes so yeah it's it is
36:55
it's one of those things that was always in that instance It was always quite
36:58
frustrating because I would be hanging from my teeth.
37:02
I was hanging from my teeth and I would do that on tour with the illusionists when I was in that show.
37:09
And the escape went pretty well. It was all right.
37:13
And then for one reason or another, I had to change the restraint that I was
37:17
using in the show because one of the other items got changed around.
37:23
And so I had no option but to change to being hung upside down in a sort of traditional sense.
37:34
And from that moment on, that escape got a way bigger response.
37:41
And it was much easier. So in some ways, I was sort of happy about it,
37:46
but I also was frustrated because I'm like, the thing that I was doing is much
37:51
more impressive, but that's the thing about creating...
37:56
Work that the audience has a point of reference for
37:59
you know you quite quite often
38:03
you know you'll see jugglers talking about it that they'll do this incredibly
38:07
difficult trick and get golf claps and then they'll do something that's sort
38:11
of much much easier but perhaps a bit more showy or familiar or whatever and
38:15
the audience will go nuts you know they sometimes they don't know what they don't there.
38:21
So how do you prepare mentally and physically for these types of really dangerous scenarios?
38:28
It's always different, you know, depends on what it is.
38:33
Essentially, I was a big proponent of chunking so that, you know,
38:37
you'd prep in a piecemeal form,
38:40
do little bits of it, and then eventually sort of string it together.
38:44
But every time it's difficult.
38:47
You know, with iron jaw it was a process of of
38:50
literally training like you would train any
38:53
muscle to to get stronger to just
38:56
sort of increase tension over time but
38:59
uh yeah i mean i'm certainly by
39:02
that point in my career i wasn't sort of practicing picking
39:07
up and handcuffs or anything like that you know that stuff
39:10
i had down but it's more about the picture frame
39:13
at that point than than the actual content content of
39:16
the picture if that makes sense absolutely and
39:19
so after this obviously very successful career of
39:23
traveling all around the planet and doing these performances it was during
39:27
october 2021 when we had this awful accident and you know you it was amazing
39:34
to be able to see what the actual finished escape was supposed to look like yeah yeah yeah yeah,
39:45
It was an amazing escape in which you were hanging from the center of a crane
39:50
and you were going to escape and on either side of you were two vehicles that
39:53
were going to crash into you if you didn't escape in time.
39:57
Yes. There was a point in that where you knew it was going wrong.
40:01
What do you recall from that moment?
40:04
I knew that it was going wrong, but in that moment, there was no time to do anything about it.
40:14
I think that if in a situation where you knew that you were going to be hit
40:20
by a car, let alone two of them, you would have some sort of adrenalized response.
40:25
But my response was that I just went, oh, bleep, although I didn't say bleep.
40:31
And then my world went black.
40:35
And the next moment that I'm conscious of, or I remember at least, was on the ground.
40:40
But I must have been awake because I didn't hit my head.
40:45
I fell, you know, the cars hit me and collided and exploded.
40:49
And then I fell, but by that time I wasn't over the airbag anymore.
40:53
And so I fell 30 feet headfirst to the ground, but I didn't hit my head.
40:58
I tucked and broke both my shoulders.
41:02
So I guess at some level I was conscious, but I was certainly very fortunate. it.
41:08
And then I woke up on the ground and it was at that point that I realized that
41:14
I was paralyzed, that I couldn't move my legs.
41:17
It's an odd thing that happens when you're in a situation where you're doing
41:21
that kind of performance. You sort of shoulder all of the stress in the environment.
41:27
Everybody else is just sort of holding a camera or standing and watching or whatever.
41:31
And in one moment the whole
41:34
situation reversed because i
41:37
was the only person that wasn't in you know that harbored
41:40
no stress and everybody else was incredibly concerned and stressed you know
41:46
in that in that moment i was bizarrely quite relaxed there's nothing you can
41:52
do about it so you just have to wait for the the helicopter to come but i don't
41:59
remember being in any pain,
42:00
particularly, I guess, you know, shock and all of that sort of kicks in.
42:05
The body's quite good at looking after itself in those sorts of situations,
42:09
or actually as much as it can.
42:12
So yeah, that was the beginning of a long journey of recovery.
42:16
I was in hospital for six months, essentially, after that. Wow.
42:21
Yeah, the spinal surgeon said it was reportedly the worst injury he'd ever seen
42:25
of this caliber, the worst spinal injury he'd ever seen. And.
42:29
Do you think that through all the other escapes you've done in the past and
42:34
maybe the minor mishaps, like, you know, when you broke the ankle doing your
42:38
first flying fox escape,
42:39
like those just those little progressions of where things can go wrong,
42:42
little breaks and so forth that kind of made you go like, it's just another
42:45
break. It's just another situation.
42:47
We're going to get through it. Like, do you feel like there was a level of conditioning
42:50
that you sort of prepared yourself for?
42:54
I'm not sure that I, that I would have gone.
42:58
That I would have diminished what happened to me in that moment.
43:02
I think it was more about an acceptance of what had happened and being okay with it.
43:13
I'm very much a Stoic, and the
43:18
Stoic philosophy basically teaches you
43:20
to live in the moment that you know we we we
43:24
can't control the past or the future
43:27
we can only live in in in this moment right now and
43:31
and also that you know
43:33
we get to choose how we feel about things and i i think that that you know you
43:45
could look at all of the things you know i broke both my legs i injured my my liver,
43:52
or I destroyed one of my kidneys, I broke my ribs, punctured the lung,
43:55
broke both my shoulders, and suffered this complete spinal injury,
43:59
been told that I'd never walk again.
44:01
And so you could look at all of that and think, oh my God, I'm so unlucky that this has happened.
44:08
But you can take all of exactly the same circumstances and think,
44:13
oh my God, I'm so lucky you know
44:16
i shouldn't be here and and the difference between those two with all of the
44:24
same circumstances is a choice and so i make the second choice i'm incredibly
44:29
lucky and and that fortune colors every moment of my day now.
44:35
Yeah yeah those are really inspiring words
44:38
just like in your lecture and from there you've now
44:41
transitioned into hypnotherapy writing and
44:44
presenting can we can we delve into how
44:47
you've transitioned from the escapes now into
44:50
the into what you hope to achieve with project rewire
44:53
yeah i i hypnosis you
44:57
know i did a lot of consulting for for different
45:00
performers including you know working with
45:03
deron and different people so hypnosis was something
45:06
that i was very familiar with and have
45:10
always thought that it's sort of been mishandled by
45:14
the entertainment industry because you know for for the sort of cheap laughs
45:20
that it gets in a in a college show it's that all of those are essentially undermining
45:27
what is a pretty incredible therapy that can help a lot of people.
45:33
And yet, you know, the therapeutic side of hypnosis is not its shop window.
45:39
People don't get to see that part. They get to see the guy in the spangly jacket
45:43
who's going to make you think you're a penguin.
45:45
And so I always thought, well, you know, it needs a bit of a rebrand,
45:50
somebody to champion it and make people think about it in a different way.
45:55
And so many people said to me after my accident that I should,
46:00
you know, use the opportunity and my outset and mindset to help people.
46:07
And so that was maybe a thought that I had was that maybe I could do that.
46:13
And so, yeah, I have a hypnotherapy practice, which is an online practice called Project Rewire.
46:19
And that's basically the idea is helping people kind of come to hypnotherapy
46:26
with a bit more of an open mind than perhaps they would.
46:31
And part of that is really explaining to people what it is and how it works.
46:39
Because I think even a lot of hypnotherapists like to sort of sit behind the
46:43
veil and sort of claim to have sort of this power that only they have the ability
46:51
to kind of wield, which is obviously all nonsense.
46:55
And so that's been a fascinating journey, and I'm very excited to continue it, actually.
47:01
So that is one of the things that I'm doing with my time these days.
47:05
I'm spending a lot more time.
47:08
I basically thought that my sort of relationship with magic was done.
47:16
You know, I didn't sort of anticipate,
47:19
you know, couldn't continue to perform and I was okay with that.
47:24
But, you know, in the last year.
47:28
I've had so many people come to me and ask me for help with regards to different
47:34
projects, theater projects, TV projects.
47:37
And I directed a show which was in the West End of London last year that just opened up on Broadway.
47:46
So I'm doing a lot of that work, which I really enjoy. And it's quite good fun
47:51
to kind of use all of those muscles in a different way.
47:55
And then the other thing that I'm doing, which is perhaps my favorite thing
48:00
that I'm doing, is writing.
48:02
I've just written a novel, which is about to be published, and I've written
48:07
a few different television shows.
48:10
Of a uh show which is essentially
48:13
a dramedy comedy drama that is being
48:16
currently considered by netflix at the minute so i'm
48:19
hopeful that right yeah they like that enough that they'll
48:22
they'll buy it and we can make that would be fun it
48:26
seems like it seems like your creativity just has no
48:28
limits as to how much you create and one of the things that i was in awe of
48:32
when i read that you could create like five or six ideas a day is that a genuine
48:39
that's generally what you can do and where does this where does it come from
48:43
do you look at a spoon and go oh i have an idea.
48:47
No i i i mean i think that necessity is the mother of invention so you know
48:54
when when i i think that that if you set yourself the task of writing five ideas or ten ideas in a day,
49:08
then you will do that.
49:11
That's not a difficult thing. It doesn't mean that they're any good.
49:16
And certainly I would not have claimed that I would have had five good ideas
49:20
a day. But I think that...
49:25
The process of writing ideas for magic, and it's actually, if I ever write another book,
49:37
it is something that I kind of contemplated writing a book on,
49:41
is sort of the creativity of magic.
49:45
It's not something that is spoken about very much. But, you know,
49:49
it's about making sure that you have all of the tools in your tool chest.
49:55
I firmly believe that writing effect first is the right way around.
50:05
That there are, you know, I think you can always tell when a trick is written method first.
50:12
And and and don't get me wrong there are some great
50:15
tricks that are written that way around like
50:18
jim stein mayer's what's that
50:22
no i'm gonna blank on the name of the trick what's the name of the trick rick
50:27
thomas does it beautifully where you have the plank in the middle of the of
50:32
the cabinet and the girl goes into the into the am i i did a do you have any.
50:42
I'm a close-up guy i have no idea what's it called uh well that's origami no
50:50
no no that's origami that's that's not that's not the same thing no this is
50:54
there's a really great it's i'm you know i'm i'm saying it's really great and
50:57
then i'm gonna kind of criticize it it's Yeah, shadow box.
51:00
She vanishes into the middle, kind of, right?
51:03
It isn't. You can really see her clearly that it's not just a shadow thing.
51:09
And it'll come back to me or somebody will message, I'm sure, what it's called.
51:16
But it's a Steinmeier thing. And it is essentially a trick with a big mirror
51:26
that's very, very cleverly manipulated.
51:30
And a lot of Jim's stuff works in that way.
51:35
And you know for a fact, like you can just tell that he's gone,
51:42
oh, that's a clever principle with a mirror. I wonder if we could do that.
51:46
Now let's come up with a plot for it. And so what you have is a plot with a
51:51
plank in the middle of a box that a girl apparently goes into,
51:56
which makes no sense at all.
51:59
And it doesn't mean that it's not a good vanish, but it
52:02
just means for me that i think that that if
52:06
if you write the trick plot first
52:10
then i'm engaged and drawn in and
52:13
i understand where we're going or i'm kind of intrigued all
52:16
of those things that you would want if you are writing a
52:19
story and then once you've got
52:22
your story then you go okay how do we do
52:24
that you know now let's come up with
52:27
the clever principle and i think that's the right way around but
52:31
i think that yeah sorry i've
52:34
completely forgotten the question that you asked me because i
52:37
got too hung up on on is it
52:40
called osmo that might be called osmosis there you go
52:43
now now i've remembered yeah sorry about that guys what was what was the question
52:49
no you answered it perfectly friend it was about transitioning into the to project
52:55
rewire but but it actually i think it goes on to what I think should be our
52:59
final question before we wrap up as we've got a few minutes left.
53:02
And that is that just to acknowledge that your story and your recovery for me
53:07
was super inspiring and it's made me want to be a better magician and a better
53:12
person and everything else. I thought it was absolutely wonderful.
53:15
And with your story being so incredibly impactful, what advice would you offer
53:21
to others facing a life altering challenge?
53:26
I would say, you know, live in the moment.
53:32
And that goes back to the way that
53:35
I would tackle the challenges that I encountered before I was injured,
53:42
which is that if you look at the whole thing,
53:49
you know, these things are incredibly daunting.
53:52
But if you look at it piece by piece, then
53:56
then you know where are you right now are
53:59
you okay what's the thing that you can do
54:02
to move forwards you know basically those things and
54:05
then and then very quickly you'll have gone
54:08
a ways down the road in a way that didn't seem that that challenging you know
54:15
that's that's the thing it's not allowing yourself to be daunted by the the
54:20
big picture and and i think that that a lot of it is about how we look at life in general.
54:27
I think that if you're experiencing something like you're just been, what happened to me?
54:36
One minute you're fine, the next minute you're paralyzed.
54:40
Those are moments that put into relief all of the different potentials that we have at any moment.
54:50
But we all have those potentials. You know, you as an able-bodied person may
54:56
never walk along the Great Wall of China.
54:59
You may never see the Taj Mahal, but it doesn't mean that you wake up every
55:03
morning sad about that, do you?
55:04
You get up and deal with the things that you're going to do that day and that you can do.
55:09
And that's exactly the same for me.
55:13
Amazing aspiring words jonathan i swear it's just where do we get that book
55:17
you have nick k is that available i was gonna say please tell everyone where
55:21
we can actually purchase this book from i was lucky enough to get it from magic
55:25
live i believe i did see it available on your website,
55:29
it is on my website it it
55:31
my website is the daredevil.com and there's
55:35
a magicians and escape artists section which
55:39
is password protected i will say that the password
55:42
is two words essentially a
55:45
lot of people a lot of people answer it as one word
55:48
but it's two words with a capital t at the
55:51
beginning and i won't say anymore but you know those of
55:53
you will who go there will understand it is i
55:57
will i will not pretend that it's not an expense an inexpensive book
56:01
but it is also essentially everything that i ever created as a as a performer
56:07
so there's a lot in there yeah yeah i've been reading every day since since
56:13
i got back from vegas and i'm only just shy halfway through it and it is just
56:17
filled to the brim with beautiful nuggets of knowledge and.
56:21
Just so remarkable how the illusions that you do in this the escapes you do
56:26
in this are so convincing and then there's secrets in this that make you go, oh, it's okay to put,
56:31
scorpions in your mouth or you know what i mean like it's
56:34
just yeah i think i think that that
56:37
you know it's one of the things that i lectured about is that
56:40
i think that magic is most impressive when it is implausible not impossible
56:46
i think those are the moments that that that you know that that moment of an
56:51
audience person going god maybe that that's possible you know i think it's why mentalism,
56:58
why Darren, for example, is so popular and successful is because he's playing
57:04
in that space where you think, God, maybe you could do that.
57:08
And so I tried to sort of put all of that into my work.
57:14
And so using magic methods for things that you wouldn't necessarily think are
57:21
you know, methods, the hot iron being an example of that, but also doing things for real.
57:29
And as well as, as putting in methods, because it makes the line,
57:33
the line wavy and, and the audience doesn't know which side you're on at any moment.
57:38
It makes the whole thing harder to unpick. Yeah.
57:42
Walking that line of implausibility is, is such a unique walk.
57:45
And I think you give some wonderful tips on how to do that in your book.
57:47
So guys, if you do want to get your hands on it, do please scope out the website
57:51
before we wrap up just a personal thanks from me i am so thankful that you've
57:56
recovered and that you are still part of our magic world because you are still,
58:01
making it a better place for all of us and just based on your wisdom and it's
58:04
just nice to know that you're around still i'm super thankful for that and even
58:08
more thankful you took the time to chat to us today because i would have spoken
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to you to the chaos come home at magic live and the fact that you've given us
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your time today from all of us magic guys thank you so much for being here,
58:19
Jonathan. It's a pleasure. A real pleasure.
58:21
It is. We'll leave you with the final word and we'll wrap the episode. Thanks again.
58:26
Well, I just wanted to say thank you to the Magic Guys for having me on the podcast.
58:32
And thank you to the Magic community in general. It is a community that has
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given me so much over the years that I genuinely have a desire to give back.
58:44
So if I can help anybody, if you have a creative problem or you would like some advice at any point,
58:53
then reach out because i'm always happy
58:57
to to do what ali bongo did for
59:00
me and uh you know to to reach
59:03
back down and and and help others up and
59:06
create a level of their own success my website
59:09
is the daredevil.com you can also go
59:12
to jonathangoodwin.com and buy my
59:15
new novel which is published september the 1st it's called the persistence hypothesis
59:19
peace guys enjoy the rest of your day thanks for listening it's time for us
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to disappear now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.