Headbox Gallery 3

As I have described some of Ian's headboxes give you certain feelings. Well, the next two I'm going to describe don't make you feel like you might expect.

The first which Ian calls 'lightbulb head' is quite simple. You are secured in the neck stocks as usual and an open topped box in placed over your head. Then he takes the plug attached by a cable to the rear of the neck stock and plugs it into a socket in the wall of the cubicle. When he switches the socket on, a great glow shines out of the top of the head box. He returns to the chair and lifts the box from around your head and it has been replaced by a head-shaped light bulb. He then flips a switch on the neck stock and the light goes out allowing the audience, once they have overcome the dazzle, to see through to the filament and fact that the sitter's head is no longer there. Ian goes further and unscrews the lightbulb and shows it round the spectators, before screwing it back in and re-lighting it. He replaces the box and ushers the audience on to the next cubicle.

This is another of those boxes that once your head is vanished, you are alone with yourself until Ian comes back to restore you, which I gather is just simply unplugging the device. I once asked Ian what would happen if he dropped the bulb; he told me that it would take a lot more effort to do the restoration and the sitter would have a headache for several days afterwards. That, to me, explained why he did not pass the lightbulb round the audience, until he pointed out in the minute while the bulb is lit it gets very hot and he does not want to burn the audiences fingers; he also tells me that to save his own fingers and, I think incidentally, reduce the risk of dropping the bulb, that he levitates the bulb rather than actually touching it at all, but he does it close enough that the audience don't notice.

The other box he says he does not have a proper name for, but the volunteers refer to it as the Star Wars box. Ian does not like that name for the twin reasons that apart from using a stick of light it has nothing to do with Star Wars and he thinks that if he does use the name, there is the possibility that LucasFilm or Disney or whoever might come after him for royalties. If you have a better name for this box please let me know and I'll pass it on.

The set-up is simple; the sitter is put in place in the neck stock and an enclosed box placed over their head the front doors are opened to show that the head is still there and then re-closed. Once the doors are closed, Ian shows the onlookers a thing that we volunteers call the lightsabre. Its main resemblance to a lightsabre is that once switched on it has a handle and a column of light, but when not on it is just a handle and a plastic tube; tube is barely a foot long and seems to be loaded with circuit boards. He demonstrates that the tube lights up and that he can change the colour of the light from the tube; it has been known for members of audience to make sabre-swooshing noises as Ian demonstrates it; this annoys him.

Back at the head box Ian pushes the tube, unlit, through the box and through the head of the volunteer. This is uncomfortable, particularly as the tube is about an inch and a half across and the holes in the sides of the box are lined up with your ears. Once the tube has been pushed into your ear, with a very loud crunch, you go deaf in that ear, but you start to feel the mental disturbances caused by having it pushed through your brain, as well as the squishy noises heard in the other ear. Until just before it exits the other ear, when you go deaf in that ear too. With the tube installed, he re-opens the front of the box so that the audience can see the volunteer's face. He then switches the lights in the tube on and the volunteer's eyes glow and there is a little light leaks out of their nostrils too. He then adjusts the controls on the handle to change the brightness and the colour of glow of the victim's eyes and this is the point where the volunteer has been told to open the mouth which also glows. With no hearing and a light show literally and metaphorically going on in your brain, most volunteers forget to open their mouths until Ian taps them on the chin.

Once all that is done, the volunteer is left with a glowing tube through their head until the tour is finished and Ian comes back to restore everyone. Take it from me you can have some pretty bizarre thoughts go through your head and you cannot even take a nap, because of the brightness of the insides of your eyelids when you close your eyes.

The point is neither of these illusions make you feel light-headed. Sorry about the pun, but it had to be done, right?