It used to frustrate me when I'd get celebrities on my shows and I had to meet them as this ludicrous magician character rather than as myself.

I'm not very sociable. If I get invited to a glamorous event I probably won't go. That world does not really appeal to me.

I'm probably a little shyer than people imagine.

For a long time, I couldn't just sit and have a conversation with people at a table without showing them a trick. I thought you just had to impress, it was about impressing, which of course is what you do if you don't feel very impressive.

I wore a cloak for many years, I had long hair, I may have had a drop earring for a week and I fancied myself as a philosopher poet but was somewhere more in the gay female leisure pirate.

There was something about me even at an early age that enjoyed charming and manipulating.

If you aim to be controversial for the sake of it you'd end up with a very thin and meaningless show.

Mentalist is the technical term for what I do and it covers everything from psychic medium through Uri Geller, through to magicians doing tricks with a mental theme.

When I started doing magic I was quite obsessive about it. I didn't feel impressive and I had a strong desire to impress people. I was putting all my creative energy into learning and performing tricks, and it helps if you're not in relationships or doing the stuff other people are doing. But it's not necessarily a healthy way of living.

In recent years there's been a lot of philosophical theorising about how important magic is, and how it takes us back to a childlike state of astonishment. I think all this is just nonsense. Magic isn't meaningful or important other than how you're performing it in that moment.

Everything you do is about creating an experience in the viewer's head. If you're rude or irritating as a performer, then your magic is irritating.

Magic should get under people's skins.

The process of coming out is normally very disappointing. It's not that people react badly to it - they really don't care.

I went to a party when I was a student and they had a mynah bird up in the bedroom where people put their coats. I was completely captivated - I just sat there all night talking to it. The next day I passed a pet shop and they had a conure - it's a little parakeet - in the window. I bought it, not knowing what it was or how to look after it.

Since turning 40 I happily moisturise - I have what's called a regime - but I'm always in two minds because I have no idea if I'm completely wasting my money. They feel nice when they are on but I can't stop wondering, 'Am I succumbing to the same nonsense I try to fight against in other areas?'

I came across the idea of running towards the things that frighten you. Once you go and do it, you realise that the fear of it is far more powerful than actually doing it.

When I was at University I had a sort of fear about going to the gym and that kind of blokeish environment, which was rooted in a feeling of total inadequacy, which is what fear is.

I am a movie geek, yes!

Clearly if a hypnotist could make someone to steal £100k just by telling them to, the world would be a different place, and I suspect that hypnotists wouldn't bother doing shows in pubs or dodgy Spanish holiday resorts.

You have to realise that hypnosis doesn't exist: it just works on people's natural suggestibility, their expectations and capacity to unconsciously role play. You can't make someone do anything they don't want to do.

Guilt's too strong a word, but there is this niggling worry that I'm a grown-up doing a childish job and it would be nice to do something more useful and to reach a number of people with an idea you think is important.

As a performer you often feel that you're the child and everyone else is a grown-up.

If something's stressful I've always tended to just find ways of avoiding it rather than rising to meet it or try to change it.

I'll sometimes go a week or two without tweeting, and then when I'm in the mood, tweet loads, and clog up people's in-boxes. It's a moment when you feel like sharing something.