One of the reasons I enjoy going to the Opera is the spectacle of an audience enraptured. Their emotions are engaged, their passions brought to the f… - Derren Brown

Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the extraordinary father of modern conjuring, made the salient point that ‘a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician’. This is a very good description. However, an actor takes for granted how to create drama in every word, movement and look. The average magician is barely aware of its existence.

This week, we’re in Whitby on the North-east coast where my great-uncle, Count Dracula, first touched British soil in the shape of a big dog.

Every week we go to the supermarket and every week we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the packaging and layout of the goods.