He’s hung upside down, encased himself in ice, lived in a plastic box and spent a week buried underground. He’s let helium balloons pull him several miles upwards, had 1m volts of electricity fired at him, and balanced on the top of a high pillar for a day and a half. American “extreme magician” David Blaine has a catalogue of incredible feats behind him. Now, though, he’s really attempting the impossible: the sonofabitch is trying to make a watchable National Geographic travelogue. Miraculously, he’s gone and done it.
Do Not Attempt sees the unflappable conjuror visit developing, historic or remote places in search of people whose death-defying skills could conceivably get them a Vegas residency, but who, instead, are performing for coins, or just their own spiritual enlightenment. Dressed in black and full of the sort of laid-back cool that you acquire when you’ve trained your heart to beat only every other Wednesday, Blaine starts each episode at street level, looking for the real stuff, the artisan magic that tourists don’t see: think Anthony Bourdain, but instead of sniffing out premium mortadella or the world’s best noodle soup, here the sort of fine delicacy we’re after is someone covering themselves in scorpions or sticking needles under their fingernails.
That fingernails trick – or rather that stunt, since the whole point is that these are actions that look as if they must be illusions, but aren’t – is one of the first Blaine sees as he prowls the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, his first port of call. Our host tries it himself and fails, but because even David Blaine cannot escape the rules of celebrity reality-challenge TV, each episode must build to a contrived finale, a new Blaine spectacular that draws on the local knowledge he’s acquired.
In Brazil, the big idea comes together when he meets two sisters, Paty and Jaki Valente, who have found fame by performing synchronised dives from perilous heights. Combining their expertise in surviving falls with the experiences of explorer Dr Karina Oliani, who once zipwired over a bubbling lava lake, Blaine conceives a stunt where he sets fire to himself, then jumps off a high bridge.
The result is impressive, and the preparations for the fire part of the stunt produce one of the series’ darkly funny scenes, of which there are surprisingly many: to learn how long he can be aflame before the protective gel stunt performers use wears off and he gets badly burned, Blaine sets his sleeve alight, surrounded by fretting helpers who are poised to rush in with fire blankets. When the time comes to seek help, Blaine is so offhand in his ambiguously mumbled: “You can take it off” (when you or I would scream “AAAARGH! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!”) that vital seconds are lost and his arm is barbecued.
Blaine continues to casually hurt himself in the second episode of the opening double bill, which takes him to Thailand and Indonesia. Here, one of the warm-up challenges he undertakes before the big finish – back in Brazil, it was swimming with an anacondas – is a variation on the age-old spectacle of walking across hot coals. Instead, a Javanese daredevil eats them, and Blaine follows suit. “I quickly learned there was no trick to this,” he reassures us in the voiceover. “For days after, my mouth, tongue and oesophagus were burned, making it difficult to swallow.” It’s as easy as that! As the title of the show reminds you: do not try this at home.
Thus Blaine confronts one of the two main problems sensible viewers tend to have with magicians, which is not knowing how fake the tricks are. Here, the dangers are simple and elemental, and Blaine is open about them requiring either a very high pain threshold or an arcane technique. In the Rio favela, Blaine learns how to stick a knife handle-deep into his face, and in next week’s trip to India there’s a lovely exchange where a guy teaches Blaine how to smash bottles with his hands, before Blaine returns the favour by demonstrating a safe-ish way to eat the shards.
The other main beef we have with conjurors is that they are, generally speaking, sinister posers, but Blaine goes a long way towards knocking that trope down. His usual demeanour may be eerily relaxed, but he’s not interested in maintaining some kind of detached, supercool shtick: he’s generous with his “wow”s as he watches street performers, and happy to come across as vulnerable and clumsy when trying new things. The moment where he loses his nerve and runs away from a lethal spitting cobra, during snake-charming training in Thailand, is adorable. That’s not a trick many magicians can pull off.
David Blaine Do Not Attempt is on Disney+. It will also air weekly on National Geographic Channel on Thursdays from 27 March.
