Noel Edmonds documentary harks back to man’s tragic death after stunt went wrong in ‘one of the darkest moments on Saturday primetime TV’-Sabrina Barr-Entertainment – Metro

Edmonds presented The Late, Late Breakfast Show in the 1980s (Picture: Rex/Getty)

A documentary detailing the career of Noel Edmonds has looked back on the moment a man was killed while taking part in a stunt that went wrong, leading to a TV show’s cancellation.

Throughout the years, Edmonds has helmed a variety of programmes, from Top of the Pops in the 1970s to Noel’s House Party from 1991 to 2000.

Between 1982 and 1986, he hosted The Late, Late Breakfast Show on BBC1, featuring a segment called Give It A Whirl, which saw members of the public attempt a dangerous stunt live on TV after a week of training.

However, in 1986, a volunteer called Michael Lush died while rehearsing a stunt, as recollected in Channel 5 documentary Noel Edmonds: The Rise & Fall of Mr Saturday Night.

The stunt in question, which took place in November of that year, was called Hang ‘Em High, and involved a bungee jump.

While speaking on the documentary, stunt coordinator Jim Dowdall explained that in 1986, he received a call from The Late Late Show asking if he would ‘come and supervise a stunt that they were proposing doing’.

Dowdall has worked on movies franchises including the Harry Potter and Star Wars films (Picture: Channel 5)

‘The essence of the stunt was they had got an escapologist who performed at the end of one of the piers, and he was going to rig some sort of a container that had a drop-away floor,’ Dowdall outlined.

‘The gag was that this member of the public who’d been put in some sort of a straitjacket and he was going to be then lifted up on a frame inside this box.

‘When he got to a certain height, the bottom of the box would open, and he would either drop if he hadn’t managed to get out of the straitjacket. Or if he had managed to get out of it, then he could hang onto a platform and he wouldn’t drop.’

LBC presenter Ferrari remembered breaking the story (Picture: Channel 5)

Dowdall said that he refused to be involved in the stunt, adding: ‘That was four days before Michael Lush got killed.’

LBC presenter Nick Ferrari also appeared on the documentary, remembering how he broke the story of Lush’s death in The Sun newspaper, having been a showbiz reporter at the publication at the time.

Ferrari said that in his opinion, it was ‘one of the darkest moments on Saturday primetime TV by a country mile’.

Following the incident, it was reported that the BBC made an ex gratia payment of around £120,000 to Lush’s family, while the broadcaster was also fined £2,000 in addition to costs after being prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Following the incident, the programme was cancelled and Edmonds resigned from the BBC.

Noel Edmonds: The Rise & Fall of Mr Saturday Night aired on Channel 5 and My5.

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