Simon Farnaby spends four weeks and four continents asking one question: can human bodies really do this? In a Croatian village he watches nine-year-old Ivan stick cutlery to his chest, then counts 44 spoons clinging to Georgian showman Etibar Elchiyev. The Banten tribesmen of Java slice their own arms with knives and feel nothing; in a Los Angeles back lot, sideshow veteran Zamora the Torture King drives metal spikes through his biceps and invites the cameras to watch the blood dry. Farnaby winces, participates and keeps the running time to 47 minutes.
Each stop is framed as a test rather than a belief system. A Shaolin master drills a steel bit two centimetres into his own skull, then offers the handle to Farnaby, who politely declines. In Amsterdam, the stare of divine gazer Braco makes the studio audience cry; back in Britain, a psychic surgeon appears to plunge bare hands into a patient’s abdomen without leaving a scar. The presenter never declares trickery, but the edits linger on the moments where the claim wobbles: spoons that slip, levitations that need two assistants, tears that could be contact lenses.
Channel 4 broadcast the four episodes between 12 May and 2 June 2014, pulling 1.2 million for the opener and dropping below 600,000 by the finale. Twenty Twenty’s single season never returned; the DVD remains out of print and the full episodes sit unsubtitled on YouTube, where comment sections argue about magnets, adrenaline and the placebo effect in equal measure.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2014
Producer(s): Ceri Hubbard
Main Cast
