SPELL-BOUND

From escaping a custom-built coffin to risking being burnt alive, Drummond Money-Coutts is truly the wizard of valour

- ANJULY MATHAI

It is 2018, and English magician Drummond Money-Coutts is in Udaipur to perform the Great Indian Rope Trick, where a magician tosses a rope into the sky. A boy climbs the rope. The magician chases after him with a sword and cuts off his limbs, which rain down on the audience. Moments later, the boy emerges from a nearby basket, all limbs intact.

The only problem is that Money-Coutts cannot find anyone in Udaipur who is familiar with the rope trick, which, according to his grandfather who was the editor of Britain’s Daily Telegraph, is nothing but a myth. So, he does his own version of the trick, a kind of tribute to the Indian magicians of yore.

He is trussed with rope and placed in a suspended cage, with swords pinning him into position. The cage is then padlocked, and hung over spikes. Then, the spikes and the ropes holding the cage are set on fire. Money-Coutts has approximately a minute to untie himself, remove the swords, pick the padlock and leap to a safety rope—before the ropes burn through and the cage crashes on to the burning spikes.

There is a tense silence among the audience as Money-Coutts climbs into the cage. The drama builds up as the ropes and the spikes are set afire. As the clock ticks, he works furiously to free himself. And that is when two of the ropes give way. There is a collective gasp as, just in the nick of time, he leaps and latches on to the safety rope.

The rope trick was one of the death-defying stunts he performed for Netflix’s 2018 series, Death by Magic. In the eight episodes that were filmed across five countries, he had to see paramedics thrice. Two of those injuries were life-threatening.He was on oxygen, suffered smoke inhalation and suffered burns to his head.