Tunnel vision: Wentworth Miller as Michael Scofield in Prison Break. Photograph: Channel 5
"The prison hasn't been built that can hold me," said Virgil Starkwell. "I'll get out of this one if it means spending my entire life here." Woody Allen's clueless recidivist from Take the Money and Run embodies the pathological self-belief necessary in the serial escapee. As Prison Break's second season comes to a thunderous Panamanian climax on Five tonight it's time we looked at what fictional prison inmates have taught us about the art of escape with our top five escape strategies. Because you never know when you may end up doing a stretch yourself.
1. Michael Scofield tattooing the prison blueprint on his body Having designed Fox River in an under-the-table deal years before his incarceration there, Michael Scofield gets the prison plans permanently inked on his upper body. Not something to try if you're cranky around needles but it demonstrated that Scofield truly is the Mozart of escape planners.
2. The Count of Monte Cristo swapping places with a dead inmate Edmond Dantès saw the opportunity of his friend's death to put the stiff in his cell and place himself in the body bag to be carried out of his hell hole by prison officers. Unfortunately he hadn't reckoned on the lazy screws tying a cannonball to him and throwing him into the ocean but that's 19th century French melodrama for you.
3. Hannibal Lecter gets a face mask Hannibal the Cannibal gives the body substitution dodge a modern twist in The Silence of the Lambs, skinning the face of a still squealing prison guard to use as a handy mask as he gets carried out of prison on a stretcher.
4. Papillon escaping Devil's Island using coconut power Papillon, the scarcely believable true story of Henri Charrière, the French con wrongly convicted of murder, showed Charrière enduring beatings, two years solitary and regular cups of café au cockroach on Devil's Island before finally making good his escape a raft made from coconuts to a life of relative luxury in Venezuela.
5. Marie Winter climbs onto a chopper Wentworth Detention Centre held the maniac inmates and ball-busting wardens of Prisoner Cell Block H, though there was no holding Marie Winter when she pulled her Houdini act - flying away from the joint dangling from the landing gear of a low-flying helicopter leaving Vinegar Tits and the Freak behind.
Any more you can think of? And remember, prisons in movies and TV teach us one simple lesson: thinking outside the box will get you outside the can. And to steer clear of the showers.
