Entertainment

Brit’s ‘Dangerman’ lives to tell the tale

Despite what they tell us, the economy is not recovering. I know this because danger acts are more popular than ever — well, at least they are again as popular as they were in their heyday during the Great Depression.

Being broke doesn’t look so bad when you see someone who hangs from an airplane or walks a precarious tightrope to make a couple of bucks. No? Then explain why 13 million people tuned in to see Nik Wallenda walk a wire over the Grand Canyon. Gotcha!

Tonight, BBC America tries to go Wallenda six times better with a new series that is all danger, all the time. It’s called, appropriately enough, “Dangerman.”

Dangerman, aka Jonathan Goodwin, is a Brit who has spent his life since the age of 7 perfecting and enhancing the ancient arts of escapism, feats of strength and flat- out insanity. Now, Dangerman has brought his act(s) of danger to the US in a new series in which Goodwin does about five or six death-defying stunts per episode. If too much is never enough, here, one stunt is more than enough. Problem is the show is not live and the stunts are all pre-filmed, so, right off, you know Dangerman is still with us. In the first two episodes alone, we’re treated to stunts that would/should kill a normal person. Like? Hanging by two fingers from a sky-scraper? Check. Eating glass? Check. Hanging from a moving cable car across a valley thousands of feet down? Check.

Escaping from a buried coffin while being bitten by a deadly snake? Check. Hanging from a helicopter while handcuffed and tied to a parked car that can plunge him to his death if the rope runs out? Check. Placing a live scorpion in his mouth while escaping from handcuffs behind his back while women with giant breasts assist him? Check.

A real feat of strength would have been trying to lift the gigantic fake boobs on those hooker-looking women in the scorpion act.

“Dangerman” is packed with more danger than you could ever have hoped for. And that’s the problem. Too many stunts, too tightly packed together, and none of it live.

Frankly, after the horrible Cirque du Soleil accident two weeks ago, in which a performer plunged 50 feet to her death on-stage in Las Vegas, I’ve lost my interest in these acts, although I love the pole guy on “America’s Got Talent.”

That being said, danger is good, death is not and “Dangerman” is just OK.