In real life, when I can avoid anything stressful, I do.
And the nature of magic is all in the person's experience. Whether the magician is using a highly complex sleight of hand or he's just got two cards that are the same, it doesn't matter: it's how it's sold and how magical it is for the person that matters.
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.
A bedrock of insecurity made me want to impress and want to be the center of attention.
If you're a comedian, it's a bit of a choice whether or not you want to be funny when you're not performing because it might feel disingenuous. In the same way, I don't show people magic tricks in social situations any more.
Things I've done in the past always make me cringe a bit. When I think back to being a Christian. Proselytising to people, that makes me cringe.
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.
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.
Yes, I've had a slight feeling of wanting to reclaim some of the lifestyle I had in my 20s, which means poncing around in what amounts to pirate clothes.
Hypnosis is just suggestibility; you see it in certain people.
I don't want to be some extreme therapist. Although seeing someone's life change for the better is a really moving thing.
Magic should get under people's skins.
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.
Taking up magic was a distraction from my sexuality. There is that 1970s cliche of the gay man as hairdresser, interior decorator, fashionista... and all of those things are about arranging surfaces in a very dazzling way - and magic is all about how you arrange surfaces. I got very good at deflecting people from things I didn't want them to see.
Glenn Close is my favourite actress and she came to see the show in London once which was giddying.
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.
The Stoics appear during a huge time of constant wars and real political strife. And it became very popular, I think, because it's a way of distancing yourself from strife and keeping your centre of gravity within you.
The joy of doing the TV or something like 'Sacrifice' isn't really the process of doing it; the joy is going through this real-life experience.
If people have very big personalities, I find myself feeling I have nothing to offer.
Relationships are very good at making you more conscious of yourself. Especially as you get older, you develop a crust around your madnesses and shortcomings that take someone else to recognize them.
