Years ago I read in one of John Novak’s Art of Escapes books about altering the gimmick for a mail bag escape to be a handcuff sort of thing. It was the bar from the mailbag escape and it hand either chains or handcuffs attached to the ends where the locks would be. The premise is the bar was a “spreader bar” to keep your hands separate so that you couldn’t reach the other side.
For some reason I liked this as a prop and have picked up a couple of the bars, but never made them into a the prop with the restraints on the ends. They’re just sitting around collecting dust.
This morning while I was doing my morning writing, I had an idea! What if they bar held a small bag. The bag was on the bar and there were still restraints on the ends of the bars.
This idea is that you would try to get whatever you put into the bag out while chained up.
Then it hit me, that maybe the bag could be mesh with a canvas or leather top:
That would work, but I think the presentation/routine would decide if a solid or mesh bag would be used.
If it was a mesh bag, it could be a laundry bag, and a selected item could be removed? There could be a few items or items of different colors and the item called out by the audience is what is removed. If it’s a laundry bag, they you wouldn’t necessarily need to be chained to the bar.
I like this idea of using the bar from the Mailbag Escape for something it’s not really intended for!
-Louie