I think if you tried this at Paddington or King’s Cross, security and the British Transport Police would be pushing you around within 90 seconds …. A pretty cool piece of street theatre:
by Chris Bertram on February 3, 2008
I think if you tried this at Paddington or King’s Cross, security and the British Transport Police would be pushing you around within 90 seconds …. A pretty cool piece of street theatre:
{ 16 comments }
Donald A. Coffin 02.03.08 at 7:29 pm
That YouTube makes things like this possible, and available, justifies its existence.
Eszter 02.03.08 at 7:32 pm
When I first saw this my thought was: Finally, something that got even New Yorkers to stop and notice! But then I thought: perhaps it was only the tourists who noticed.:-)
The Modesto Kid 02.03.08 at 7:35 pm
This is cool. I couldn’t tell from the video, how long they stayed frozen in place? Was it like 5 or 10 minutes, or longer?
Nick 02.03.08 at 7:42 pm
Note to would-be British emulators: Heathrow T5 opens in a couple of months . . . now that would be cool (& almost certainly attract unwelcome attention from security . . . we live in a tragic & debased nation).
djr 02.03.08 at 8:17 pm
Flash mobs at London stations seem to prefer dancing to standing still! Not sure that’s due to the expected police response.
novakant 02.03.08 at 8:21 pm
This is great, I love it!
I think if you tried that at Liverpool Street during the rush-hour, though, people would just run you over, the pace at which they “walk” in London is sometimes rather scary.
will u. 02.03.08 at 8:43 pm
Awesome! Even better than the recent pantsless 2k8 on the Boston MBTA
The Modesto Kid 02.03.08 at 9:22 pm
Oh: 5 minutes. Got it the second time around.
harry b 02.03.08 at 9:25 pm
I don’t know, Chris, perhaps you should try it…. I’d add that it would probably be the passengers, not the police, that would go after you.
shteve 02.03.08 at 10:28 pm
The smartest guy was the one who went down to tie his shoe laces – even I could hold that position for 5 minutes.
Very simple, very cool.
Matthew Kuzma 02.03.08 at 10:32 pm
I’ve been a fan of the group that did this, Improv Everywhere, for some time, and this is one of their better ones. Also worth watching/reading about are the Shirtless in Abercrombie, the Cell Phone ‘Orchestra’, and the Ted’s Birthday (where they picked a stranger, decided that he was Ted, they were all his friends, and it was his birthday).
A lot of their ‘missions’ do draw some authoritarian responses in addition to amusement.
tom hurka 02.03.08 at 11:29 pm
Sweet.
Delicious Pundit 02.04.08 at 3:58 am
I also like the one they did where the guy was going to jump off a three-foot ledge, and was “talked down” by his “wife”.
Oh, and the Best Buy one.
Delicious Pundit 02.04.08 at 4:29 am
Link about the stunt here. They had people wearing wireless mics for the audio (I had wondered).
MoXmas 02.04.08 at 7:54 pm
Isn’t it kind of an old bit? A guy named Matthew Wilson did a version in Daley Plaza in Chicago (“where that Picasso’s at”) a number of years ago. That one involved about 200 people, all dressed up in business suits. They all fell to the ground, stayed motionless for 15 minutes, then got up and walked away.
And hell, even SantaCon is a kissin’ cousin to the concept, except with costumes and alcohol.
snarkout 02.04.08 at 9:27 pm
The Best Buy stunt is superb, but I think my all-time favorite of theirs was the fake U2 performance.
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