Man of Magic Geoffrey Durham is bringing his one-man show to Greenwich

- You are doing Little Miracles at Greenwich Theatre. What can we expect from the show?

This is the second one-man show I’ve done. The other I did for seven years. It was the first time a magician had ever done a one-man show in the sense that it was just me, literally. There wasn’t a support act or assistants. This is magic with a lot of talk and chat. It is not just a magic show, you get to learn a bit about me. I talk quite a lot. I really enjoy it and feel privileged to be able to do it because I’m on the telly and I can get an audience. The last show was, perhaps, a bit small. I do bigger and more varied stuff. This time I’m levitating a member of the audience and I’m doing mindreading. It is a big mixture — the only link is it’s all me.

- So you are you rather than The Great Soprendo?

Oh yes, I haven’t done The Great Soprendo since 1989. He’s never coming back. I did do a little bit of it for old time’s sake in the last show but there’s nothing at all in this show.

- Have you ever been tempted to have a beautiful blonde assistant, like Paul Daniels does?

No, I have never done that. It has never been my way. It’s the ego! I’ve always wanted to do it on my own. It’s something about the way I work. I try to make the show as friendly and communicable as possible and try to do something very intimate. I’d only want to do the show in a theatre as small as Greenwich because it has to be very intimate. I go up the aisles of the auditorium in the interval doing close-up tricks. There is bigger stuff in the second half. I do a lovely trick which I don’t think anyone has seen where somebody thinks of a picture and signs a blank canvas then the picture appears on the canvas and they get to take it home.

- Does your show take a lot of preparation?

It took me a year to devise. These things take a long time. You can’t throw something on in three weeks like an actor can. You have to be continually rehearsing. Last year I was doing the old show and rehearsing the new one at the same time.

- Would you say your magic is old-fashioned?

Well, in the sense that there are no new tricks in the world at all, ever, I suppose it is, but in the sense that it expresses me and my personality then it’s about as old-fashioned as I am — and that is not for me to say really!

- What do you think of magicians like David Blaine?

I think he is really old-fashioned in the sense he is doing the oldest tricks in the world. They are so old they’re new! I think he is marvellous. If he is old-fashioned I’m very happy to be old-fashioned but if he is modern I’m very happy to be modern because that is the kind of stuff I do. Well, not starving myself on tall buildings — I don’t mean that.

- If you could make anyone disappear who would it be?

Tony Blair at the moment. No, I don’t make anyone disappear in my show. It’s a friendly show.

- You have been appearing on Countdown on and off for years. Did you watch the show before?

At 4.30 at the end of the day in my office I used to get on my exercise bike and watch Countdown. I thought, hang on a minute, I’m quite good at this, I could be on there.

- Is Richard Whitely as scatty as he seems?

Scatty is not the word I’d use. I have learnt a huge amount about being relaxed in a TV studio from Richard Whitely. He is marvellous at it. But being as relaxed as he is does make him a little distracted. You sometimes find him not looking at the camera or saying what. It is marvellous. He gets terribly cross if there’s any suggestion they will cut it so he keeps it in. He is clever because he knows where his attraction is and it is not in being right all the time. I have learnt I need to be more and more myself when I’m on the telly and Richard has contributed to that.

- Did you know you were nominated as one of the 1,000 people more annoying than Mick Hucknell? Do you think you are annoying?

I’m annoying to the people I annoy, I suppose.

You can see if the magician annoys you at Geoffrey Durham’s Little Miracles, Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill, Sept 11-13, 8pm, £16-£10, 020 8858 7755