1. The drugs don’t work
Britain’s best-known stunt performer, motorbike monster Eddie Kidd, suffered a horrific fall in 1996. After successfully completing a jump at Long Marston airfield in Warwickshire, Eddie fell from a 20ft bank, suffering brain damage that will prevent him from ever jumping again. Sadly, he later admitted that his judgement had been clouded by spending the previous evening drinking and taking drugs.

2. And crime don’t pay
The world’s most famous retired stunt performer is motorcycle madman Evel Knieval. Though Evel – known as Robert Craig to his mum and dad – was a safecracker before he realised that crime doesn’t pay as much as stunts. In 1974 his failed attempt to jump a 1,700 foot chasm across Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho, netted him a cool $6 million.

3. Great escapes
Pre-TV and film, the world’s most famous stage stunt performer was the legendary Houdini. Born in Hungary in 1874, he thrilled audiences across the globe with his death-defying escape acts. Handcuffed and chained, he escaped from jail cells, crates thrown into rivers, mailbags, milk cans, water torture cells, and coffins which had been buried underground.

4. Hard act to swallow
(Also known as: don’t try this at home) In his early days as a struggling performer, Houdini perfected a bizarre routine known as the Needle Trick. This involved separately swallowing dozens of needles and lengths of thread, and then regurgitating the needles with the thread threaded through them!

5. Tragic endings - number 1
Houdini died in 1926 as a result of a tragic mishap. Whilst demonstrating his ability to withstand blows to the body, his appendix was ruptured by a punch to the stomach from a Canadian student. He died a week later of peritonitis.

6. Tragic endings - number 2
A comprehensive list of stunt performers who have been killed as a result of their work can be found on the Stunt Players Memorial Wall. (See Links for website address).

7. Hanging around
Possibly the most famous stunt image of all time is that of the American comedian and film actor Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock at the top of a skyscraper with the city street several stories below. This stunt was performed by Lloyd in 1923 for the aptly named film ‘Safety Last’.

8. Blowing a fuse
What makes the above stunt even more incredible is the fact that four years earlier, in 1919, Lloyd had lost the thumb and forefinger of his right hand during a publicity stunt when a prop bomb was mixed up with a real bomb that consequently exploded in his hand.

9. Do it yourself
During the early years of film, it was de rigueur for the stars themselves to perform their own stunts. Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, and Laurel and Hardy were all known to have performed stunts on set which would horrify modern film and TV makers. These days, whilst Arnie, Sly, George Clooney, and Anneka Rice might claim in the press to have done their own stunts, you can bet their billion-dollar insurance policies they used a body double.

10. Safety first
The BBC itself has strong guidelines on who can and who can’t perform stunts in a BBC production. Members of the public are definite no-nos; whilst even actors, presenters or contributors may only ‘create the illusion of danger’ if stringent safeguards are met; and anything else may only be performed by a professional stunt artiste. (See Links for details).