VIDEO - DAN DARES: Reporter loses head at hands of guillotine wielding magician (From News Shopper)

VIDEO - DAN DARES: Reporter loses head at hands of guillotine wielding magician

7:10am Monday 27th July 2009

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News Shopper bosses have been trying to give reporter DAN KEEL the chop for quite some time now.

Luckily for them a 77-year-old magician was on hand with a guillotine for the daredevil's ninth challenge - Off with his head!

LAST week I received a phone call from none other than the vice president of the Magic Circle, Jack Delvin.

"Are you Dan from Dan Dares?" he asked. God, not another hysterical fan, I thought. How am I ever going to get any work done?!

But before I could tell him to send any fan mail to my mum in Reading, he started talking about how he would like to chop off my head for Dan Dares 9.

The pensioner from Orpington chatted about his performance on Noel Edmond's House Party in the 90s and his guest appearance on One Foot in the Grave with Richard Wilson.

He said he had been conjuring magic for 57 years and had once used his Guillotine on the 'silver fox' TV presenter Phillip Schofield.

And so Mr Delvin made his way to Shopper HQ equipped with a guillotine and a cabbage.

As he walked into the office the magician grasped my head in both hands, looked at me curiously and said: "Yes that should fit in the bucket nicely".

And as we strolled into the newsroom I asked him if this particular trick had ever gone wrong. "Apparently it only goes wrong once in every four attempts", he replied.

"And how many times have you done this before?" I enquired. "Three".

But with the News Shopper readers in mind I pressed on with the challenge, blindly trusting the grey-haired wizard despite his crazy eyes.

As we posed for my pre-execution photograph's I sneakily touched the blade with my finger - and yes, it was actually very sharp.

I watched in horror as the blade sliced through a cabbage in a practice session and then, upon instruction, gingerly placed my head on the chopping block and braced myself for impact.

But as the countdown from ten began, I suddenly realised I had completely forgotten to check this guy out.

I hadn't Googled him, I hadn't called the Magic Circle, and come to think of it, I hadn't even checked that a man named Jack Delvin existed. This could be some psycho off the street!

But it was too late, I was locked in and there was no going back. Three, two, one..........

To watched a video of Dan being guillotined, along with all his previous challenges, visit newsshopper.co.uk/news/dandares.

Mr Delvin runs classes at the London School of Magic in Orpington for both adults and children.

For more information call him on 01689 826169, email Magic@JackDelvin.co.uk or visit his website at jackdelvin.co.uk

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