by Hazel Flynn
There was less than a fortnight between the announcement and the next competition stage — what we thought at the time was the preliminary final — but that was okay, I’d been working on my Electric Chair routine for over a month. It had to be nothing less than spectacular. Not a second of the two minutes I’d been allocated would be wasted, and if it all went off as I thought it would, people would be left speechless. The routine was based on a classic of magic known as the ‘deKolta Chair’, debuted by a French magician called Joseph Buatier deKolta at Egyptian Hall in London in the 1880s. In deKolta’s version (which he called the ‘Vanishing Lady’) he placed a wooden chair onstage with a piece of newspaper underneath it to indicate to the audience he wasn’t using a trapdoor. His wife, assisting him, sat in the chair. He covered her with a large piece of silk before throwing his arms up, at which point both the lady and the silk disappeared into thin air.
The style and feel of my version was inspired by a film I love and have watched many times, The Green Mile, set on Death Row in a southern US prison in 1935. The movie has a great story and excellent performances but it also has a fantastic look, which I wanted to use. I’d done a simpler version back in 2008 on the Threshold tour, but this was on a whole other level.
The AGT piece began with a curtain mysteriously raising itself on an empty raised platform before dropping to reveal me standing there wearing a cool military-inspired costume. The backdrop was a projection of menacing barbed wire and the music was tough, with an irresistible driving beat. There was a brief high energy dance in which I was backed by four male dancers dressed as prison guards, then Adam, also in guard uniform, handed me a flaming torch. I used it to set fire to the base of a cage positioned on another raised trolley, which I then covered with a cloth. When I whisked the cloth off the fire was gone and in its place was Priscilla, wearing a sexy version of an orange prisoner jumpsuit.
She broke free and then with some stylish moves ‘stole’ the warden’s keys at my waist. Recapturing her, I led her to an ‘electric chair’ and, with the assistance of prison-guard Adam, strapped her in and put a menacing steel cap on her head before covering her with a large cloth. Stepping forward and putting on a baseball cap, I pushed down the lever to ‘electrocute’ her. Thanks to the pyro crew, sparks flew wildly as Adam pulled the cloth off to reveal the now empty chair. I came to the front of the stage with the cap obscuring my face, then pulled it off to reveal it was really Priscilla standing there. But if she was on the stage in my costume, where was I? She pointed behind the judges’ table out into the audience where a spotlight revealed me rising into the air, hanging from a wrist loop, accompanied by an explosive final flourish of steam.
The toughest part of doing an illusion like this in a TV studio is that, unlike a conventional theatre, there are no side or back curtains to conceal movements, no dim lighting, no wings at the side of the stage to disappear into and no trapdoor to swallow you up. But those are also the things that make the routine incredibly powerful, because people simply can’t see how it is possible.
Of course the show’s stage crew knew my secret — it wouldn’t have been possible without great work from people including rigger Tiny and stage tech Ben Winstanley. Although neither the judges nor the audience saw the rehearsals, the producers did and I could tell they were impressed because they had shifted the order of the acts. At rehearsal I’d been second-last, with Jack after me. For the show itself I would go last. I was always on the lookout for subtle indications of how I was going, including seemingly throwaway comments by a floor manager or changes in the running order like this one. John and I had continued to spend a lot of time week after week analysing every aspect of the show and it had become obvious to us that the act that was shot last was inevitably the one the producers thought was the strongest and was going to get the biggest reaction from the audience. Putting Electric Chair last meant they thought I was going to give Jack a run for his money.
But everything had to be perfect and the cloth covering Priscilla wasn’t. So the day before filming I went to my wonderful Nonna Elisa’s and she and I spent hours at her sewing table working on it together.
Every bit of effort that went into Electric Chair was worth it. The audience were blown away and so were the judges. Grant Denyer spluttered in astonishment, ‘What just happened?! That was off the wall!’ Kyle was more animated than I had ever seen him. He said, ‘If I was at home watching this on TV I’d think “This has been edited”, but I’m sitting here. I know how long it takes someone to get up on the roof just to dangle an umbrella down. It takes, like, ten minutes to do that. How you got from there [on the stage] to there [behind me] — it totally blows my mind. I am amazed for the first time in my entire life.’ Praise for magicians doesn’t get much better than that. Brian mimed that he was literally lost for words then mimed that viewers should phone in to vote for me. Dannii capped off the comments by saying, ‘You know how to put on a show. We are blown away. Everyone loves you. You make people laugh, scream, cry, clap, shout. Love it! We just can’t wait to see what you’re going to do next, you deserve the big world stage.’ The three of them and the entire audience gave me a standing ovation.
Cosentino family collection
After some more incredibly kind words Grant asked, ‘Is that the reaction you were hoping for? Is that what you set out to achieve with this?’ It was, in fact, even better than I had imagined. I got very emotional as I answered, thinking of 81-year-old Nonna, who would watch the show knowing what an important a part she had played, and thinking of my parents, who weren’t there to see how well I was doing, having gone overseas on a long-booked holiday just after Water Trap. I said to Grant, ‘I’m overwhelmed, I really am. We’ve put so much work into it, so much effort, my brothers, my family, Nonna. I’m not just doing it for myself, I’m doing it for my family and I’m doing it for my whole artform and this is a dream come true.’
After Electric Chair there was no question in anyone’s mind that I would be one of the ten acts going through to the final. On radio, online and in the newspapers people were talking and writing about what they’d seen for days afterwards, trying to figure out how I’d done it. Bookings for the remaining dates on my Distortions tour increased sharply and the remaining seats rapidly sold out. I couldn’t wait for Mum and Dad to get back and see it for themselves. We tried to keep them up to date, but it was impossible to get across the feeling of change and excitement that was building up around me. I particularly wanted Dad to experience it for himself because I knew he had been so concerned on my behalf about whether I was doing the right thing in persisting with my dreams despite all the disappointments.
But then AGT’s producers threw us a major curve ball: the media commentators had been right, they were going to extend the season and they were doing it by adding in another elimination level. That meant everyone who was still in the competition had to come up with a whole new act . . . in less than two weeks. Of the ten of us, six were singers or rappers, two were comedians and there was a dance troupe and me. I know the others felt pressure in having to learn a new piece but it was a challenge of a whole different kind for me. I’d mapped out three acts culminating in the show-stopping Electric Chair. Those acts had taken months of work and now I had just two weeks to come up with something even more spectacular? Let’s just say it’s lucky I enjoy a challenge.
My heart was pounding, I couldn’t stand being in there a second longer.
My parents had arrived back home and Adam, John, Dad and I sat down together to talk about the possibilities. We discussed doing Crazy Cell. We had the equipment on hand and it was a piece I’d done many times, although not for a while. But as big as it was, it wasn’t big enough. Instead we decided to go for broke with a piece I dubbed ‘Bear Trap’. This was something I’d been thinking about for a while, using a piece of equipment which Vegas builder Mike Michaels had created as a prototype. It was a hinged steel ‘ jaw’ that snapped together like some kind of medieval torture instr
ument. When Mike had first described it a few months earlier I thought it sounded very interesting. I asked what he planned to use as the trigger to make the jaws close. He wasn’t sure, so I suggested a burning rope, as I’d used on Crazy Cell. Mike liked the sound of that and said when the prototype was finished he would send it over for me to test out and modify.
In the normal scheme of things that process would have taken months. Instead, as soon as Dad, Adam, John and I finished talking I called Mike and arranged for him to urgently finish his work on the equipment, break it down and get it on a plane as soon as possible. He made the arrangements; it would reach me a week before filming. Apologetically I cancelled my school show bookings for the coming fortnight, and the rest of the family dropped everything to help me prepare for this unexpected extra act.
Fortunately, we were able to get immediate access to the factory in Clayton we had used previously. We storyboarded an escape in which I would be strapped into a straitjacket and suspended upside down by my ankles, then hoisted high up in the air in between the metal jaws. Hanging upside down, I would have to free myself from the straitjacket then swing up and release my ankles so I could drop to the stage before the metal jaws crashed together. That was pretty good but I wanted even more risk, more drama . . . more wasabi. So in addition to the burning rope timer we decided to take it even further by setting the teeth themselves on fire, which is why it came to be called by some viewers ‘the flaming jaws of death’.
Shev Wanigatunga
The workload was intense in the first week as we did as much as possible while we waited for our special delivery, but when the steel jaws arrived we went into overdrive. We worked night and day for a week, snatching no more than a few hours’ sleep at a time. We began with me painting the equipment and working on the rope timer while my uncle Vince, also an engineer, came in to help Dad and John with the rigging and Adam liaised with the brilliant AGT crew.
By this point in my career I had straitjacket escapes down to a fine art; however, unlike Houdini, I’d never done one upside down. But that challenge alone wasn’t enough. I wanted to add something that would make it even more visually arresting. The image that came to mind was an aerial circus performer spinning on the long silken cloth known as a tissu. I described it to Tiny, rigger extraordinaire, who came up with a swivel apparatus for my ankle attachment. It made the escape much harder: not only was all the blood rushing to my head, there was also the disorientation produced by spinning wildly. But it looked terrific. To increase the wow factor even further we also kept pushing the final drop higher and higher. We eventually got it up to six metres — a real challenge, since the only thing to prevent me breaking my ankles when I fell was a five centimetre–thick, impact-absorbing mat which was less than 1.5 metres square.
A couple of days into our intense final week of preparation I tore a muscle near my ribcage. It hurt like crazy but I didn’t have time to sit back and let it heal and I couldn’t risk taking painkillers in such a dangerous situation in case they dulled my reflexes. There was no choice but to fight through it. By the time filming day rolled around I was exhausted and so was everyone else on the team. We drew strength from what was at stake — every successful AGT appearance took us closer to the goal of me breaking through nationally.
On the day of filming, the escape came off perfectly. I was hoisted upside down into the air, John set the rope alight and the 82-second timer began its race to zero. I struggled against my bonds and was able to get my sleeves free with just thirty seconds to go. It took fifteen more seconds to force the straitjacket down over my head, leaving almost no time to get free of my ankle ties before my time ran out. With just five seconds left on the clock, many in the live audience were screaming and crying out. I fell to the mat just as those fiery jaws snapped together. The crowd cheered and roared and the judges applauded in amazement.
This time around there was none of the angry ‘That will show you doubters!’ energy I’d felt taking my bow at the end of Water Trap. Instead my main emotion was enormous relief that, on its first public outing, the act had worked so well and I’d pulled it off without getting hurt. I also felt lifted up by the audience’s response. Their roller-coaster reactions and the connection we now shared was exactly what made all the effort that had gone into it worthwhile. The judges were great too. Brian spoke first, commenting on how blown away everyone was, then said, ‘When you came out at first I wasn’t sure. I was like, yeah, he’s a really good magician but how can he take this bigger and bigger and bigger, and you’ve just done it every week.’ Dannii and Kyle (who was beamed in from Los Angeles) also raved about what they’d seen and its potential on the world stage. I knew that even though I’d still only shown them a fraction of what I could do it had been enough to prove that when magic was done right it could be spectacular entertainment.
The viewers at home felt the same way the studio audience had: the YouTube clip of Bear Trap was shared and favourited and forwarded all over the place; people in their thousands made the effort to vote for me; and I became aware that I was starting to be recognised when I was out and about in public by people who had become fans through AGT. (Mike Michaels also got a nice spin-off from it when, with my blessing, he promoted the steel jaws in magic magazines using stills of my act and had orders flood in. It didn’t take long before I saw other, let’s just say very similar, acts popping up in various parts of the world.)
I’d often felt that the ‘gatekeepers’ of entertainment, especially TV, routinely underestimated the public. For instance a comment I had heard repeatedly over the years, and especially when I was meeting TV executives to discuss The Inconceivable, was that I wouldn’t succeed on TV in Australia because I was too different. More than once I was told, ‘You’re not the boy next door.’ Too right I’m not. The boy next door can’t escape from a straitjacket while hanging from his ankles. But they didn’t mean it that way. They meant that having facial piercings and long hair made me ‘unrelatable’ to ‘ordinary people’. But in the ordinary, suburban world I live in, the boy next door is likely to have a tattoo . . . and so is his mother. TV chefs and Test cricketers have man buns. People in fast-food ads have blue hair. Our society is wonderfully diverse and I’d long felt certain that anyone who thought in terms of ‘boy next door’ stereotypes was living in the past. I’d just had no way of proving it. That all changed when I was voted into the AGT top three. No-one could say I was too strange or scary for mainstream audiences now. I thought back to the discussions I’d had with my family about whether a talent show was the right vehicle for me and felt so glad and grateful that I’d taken the plunge.
At the semi-final stage my aim had just been to make it into the top ten but as one after another was eliminated in the ‘Grand Final Decider’ show it became clear I was going to be right up in the top group. The final three were Jack Vidgen, myself and singer-songwriter Timomatic (Chooka seemed to lose his mojo and had gone out in the Final Showdown round). I was thrilled to have made it that far but when Grant Denyer announced that the next person eliminated was Timomatic an electric surge ran through me. I was in the final two! I could see my parents filled with excitement and happiness in the audience and, out of camera range, Adam, John and the AGT crew high-fiving each other in delight.
But even so, I thought there was no real chance of me winning because of AGT’s prize format. The winner did get $250,000, but the real carrot was a recording contract; finding new acts for record companies had always been a major driver of the show. Three of the four previous seasons had been won by music acts and the other, in 2010, was won by Justice Crew, who entered as a dance act but were reinvented as a band and signed to Sony Music. In contrast to me, Jack Vidgen made perfect sense as a record company signing — and indeed had already been chosen by Sony to play at one of its fundraisers before the AGT finale.
It was triumph enough to have succeeded in getting magic so close to the winning position and to have the chance to perform one more time — befo
re the show started the top ten performers had all been told that the final two, whoever they were, would do one last performance in the following week’s ‘Grand Final Decider ’show, a reprise of their audition piece. I didn’t want to do an exact repeat so I spiced it up by appearing in a smoke chamber and adding a few extra flourishes.
Standing on the stage for the announcement of the winner I looked around and gave silent, heartfelt thanks for the amazing way Australia had come together behind me. Then, as I’d expected, Jack’s was the name read out as winner and I congratulated him and wished him well.
The ‘Grand Final Decider’ was aired on the day it was filmed. Not quite a live broadcast but not far off, with the producers and editors given just a couple of hours to make the finished show. All the contestants, the judges and the crew gathered to watch the broadcast at an after-party. I felt the love in the room and a huge sense of shared pride with the AGT crew for what we’d been able to achieve with my pieces. (In fact Adam, John and I threw a separate party to thank them all.) There were plenty of interesting conversations that night, including with some of the high-level agents and managers present talking to me about possible representation. The next day we learned that an incredible 3.1 million people all around Australia had watched the show.
Several times previously, most recently just after Anchored, I’d thought I’d broken through to the next level and I’d been wrong. But there was no mistaking it this time. Within two weeks of AGT finishing I had fifty bookings for corporate gigs — appearances at trade conferences and business awards and huge company team-building events right around the country. Strangers kept coming up to me in the street and telling me how much they enjoyed what I’d done on the show and how I’d been their pick to win. To my absolute delight Bicycle Playing Cards, whose wares I’d been using to practise and perform tricks since I first began, released an edition with my name and image on them. Suddenly managements and agencies wanted to pitch to us, instead of the other way round. And Network Seven executives were happy to take a meeting with me to discuss my idea for a TV special. It was a seismic shift.