Designer: Robert Harbin

The Assistant’s Revenge is a transposition illusion in which two performers change places. The assistant is locked in a standing position in a large frame with various straps, manacles, chains, and locks. The magician circles the frame while pulling a curtain around thus hiding the assistant from sight. Immediately after the magician disappears behind the frame, the assistant appears from the other side of the apparatus. When the curtain is removed, the magician is now shown restrained in the frame; the two seem to have changed places by magic.

In practice, the roles of restrainer and restrainee have been interchangeable between magician and assistant. Sometimes it begins with the assistant restraining the magician, with the implication that in this way the assistant is gaining “revenge” for all the other tricks they do where the assistant is put in a box. However it is also performed with the assistant being restrained at the beginning and emerging at the end to with the magician restrained as “revenge” for the opening part.

It was first published in Will Ayling’s book The Art of Illusion (1968). David Nixon premiered it on British television in 1975. [1]

https://youtu.be/gJFsBpg4bJs

SOURCES
[1] Ali Bongo in Abracadabra, SATURDAY, 24th MAY, 1975.