It's a controlling thing on stage - you're directing the action, getting people to play their role. In real life, I take being kind and nice seriously, so the last thing I'd ever want to be is that weird, controlling, manipulative character.

I had a natural aptitude for wanting to be the centre of attention and a definite skill for annoying people.

There's something a bit embarrassing about saying you're a magician. It immediately suggests all these horrendous cliches, let alone that you're a grown-up doing a child's job.

I never quite know how to describe what I do. I normally just say, 'Oh, I'm a magician', which probably puts fairly naff ideas in people's minds but is pleasantly conversation-stopping.

A lot of unconfident kids do tricks because it's the quickest route to impressing people. You can stand behind something amazing and people think you're amazing.

I'm finally having my TV removed and replaced by a tropical fish tank, which I hope will provide more interesting viewing.

Kindness and compassion aren't political qualities even though they get politicized.

I have a couple of dogs and I live with my partner. We just like to sit and read and I'm generally quite quiet.

Magic, whether it's mind magic or conjuring, is about the cheapest and quickest way of impressing people, and I think if you don't grow out of that as a magician then it shows, and people get a bit sick of that after a while, because it starts to feel like posturing. So I grew out of it.

Most people's fear of being in front of an audience can generally be conquered by being completely on top of what it is they've got to do.

Sexuality is often tied in with something you feel you lack in yourself and look for in others.

The big, fun, ambitious ideas tend to come out of the frustration of talking for too long about the smaller, weaselly ones.

That's how I lived for 10 years in Bristol after graduating. I just stayed in my student flat and paid very little rent. It was lovely, and part of me still misses that very lazy lifestyle. I was known as the magician on the street, and I used to dress a little eccentrically in a cloak.

I've got a house full of taxidermy. It's like a museum. I have about 200 pieces in total, all ethically sourced.

Hypnosis is just suggestibility; you see it in certain people.

Feeling we have to be constantly updated about the lives of our friends and that everything we say has to be out there leads to frustration, anger and jealousy much more than it leads to anything else.

The people who are most susceptible to hypnosis - the rugger bugger types - were also the ones who intimidated me most at school, so on an unconscious level I suppose I'm turning the tables on them.

Sometimes you need to be aware of the bigger picture you are missing.

In terms of self-esteem and confidence I think I'm generally quite healthy.

A magic trick of any sort works because you tell yourself a story about what you see. And politicians use this all the time in their own way by throwing a load of statistics at you when things don't quite follow and then saying, 'So therefore blah,' and you believe that 'blah' thing because of the confusion that's come before.

For every moment of concentration there is an equal moment of relaxation.

We go through life owned by the stories we tell ourselves which are often historic and charged narratives - things we've learnt since childhood that we don't even consciously realise are going on.

Look, I just read out loud for a living. Most of my friends are doctors or lawyers, people I went to university with, they're on the train at 7 A.M. and don't get home until 7 P.M. They work bloody hard, and they're allowed to be overwhelmed. I don't think I'm allowed, really.

I find it alarming that people are so convinced they're the best at anything - presenting, hairdressing, getting dressed.