S'pore duo stun with stunts

SINGAPORE - Oo the closing night of the Singapore Night Festival 2013, Singapore's premier magician duo, J C Sum, 35, and Magic Babe Ning, 30, heated things up with a straitjacket escape, the Ultimate Inversion.

Suspended from a single burning rope above the National Museum of Singapore's dome on Saturday, the daredevil illusionists had to free themselves from their straitjackets while their ankles were precariously hooked on the rigging.

The absence of safety nets meant that a small mistake could send them plummeting to the ground 23m below.

But the duo stunned the audience with their 15-minute feat, in the presence of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Thunderous applause

They won themselves not just thunderous applause and cheers from the few thousand people that night but also a spot in the Singapore Book of Records as the first to attempt a tandem upside down double straitjacket escape.

This is not the only stunt the award-winning illusionists performed for this year's Singapore Night Festival.

On Friday night, the duo performed The Water Vault, which saw Magic Babe Ning in a vault filled with water, using paper clips to pick the locks she was bound by.

Of the two stunts prepared for the Singapore Night Festival, J C Sum told The New Paper: "We hope we have set a high standard of magic presentation, illusion presentation and mega stunts.

"We have shown a variety over the years from illusions to mind reading to predicting the 4-D and now doing a death defying stunt, so I think it is the variety that has kept it interesting."

He is also heartened by the recognition that the duo is getting from the National Heritage Board and the public that "local magic is and can be world-class".

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