The Last Word: Steven Frayne

You’re going back to being Steven Frayne and dropping Dynamo. How did that decision arise?

A lot of it came from having a massive level of imposter syndrome, and that was heightened when I was in the midst of my illness [Frayne has Crohn’s disease] and my body was saying no. I was literally in the hospital bed, unable to do everyday tasks, let alone think about picking up a pack of cards and blowing someone’s mind. I was such an oxymoron: on one side I was the guy who walks across the River Thames and levitates with the Shard, but here’s Steven who can’t even make a cup of tea. I reached a point where I thought, ‘Well, I need to focus on getting Steven right and I just need to forget the magic to a certain extent and everything that’s come before it.’ 

That was compounded by the deaths of my three greatest loves. My nana was the person who nurtured me, and then my two dogs — they all died in the space of one weekend. My dogs were partly my reason for getting up in the morning — mainly because they’d otherwise shit in the house — but that routine gave me an existence. 

And then when I was reflecting on my nana’s passing, I thought about all the magic that she and my grandpa imparted in me, and I felt that to them I was always Stephen. That was the thing they loved most about me, and I thought the pressure of living up to the expectation of Dynamo was too much. It was time to let Dynamo go with my nan and my dogs. 

What was that process like? 

Well, it felt like a good idea at the time, but when it came to it, it was actually horrible! But I’m glad I did it because I focused on inventing a whole new style of magic, and when you watch the Dynamo Is Dead special, you’ll see that 80 per cent of the magic in the show is not performed by me, it’s by guests in the show. They’re the ones who make every major decision. Every ounce of pain that I was dealing with in my life at that point got put into that show. I had this prospect of, ‘If I can’t do the magic myself in the way that I used to, then maybe I can help other people find their own magic.’

And ever since I got out of that hole, I’ve spent this past year creating magic from happiness and I’ve never done that before. Throughout my career, I’ve been using it as a way to beat the odds.

You’ve spoken before about how your grandad taught you magic as a defence mechanism.

Yes, and I touch on this in the show. He taught me a trick with matches vanishing from a matchbox and it changed my life. It made me suddenly realise that there’s things in the world I don’t understand, and maybe there was more to the walls of the estate that I was trapped in. Every day I was repeatedly getting thrown inside a wheelie bin outside of school, taken to the top of these hills and thrown down them. But my grandad picked me up one Friday, and as we walked back, he told me he’d seen what happened and that he was going to teach me some techniques to help me. I thought he was going to go all Mr Miyagi [from The Karate Kid], but he taught me some magic techniques to help me and create the impression I was this immovable force. I didn’t think it was going to work, but the next time they tried to put me in the bin, I tried what my grandpa showed me, and they couldn’t move me. People may have thought I was a crazy demon, but it got people off my back for a year.

When I went to college, I was able to tell people that my name was Stephen, and I did magic. It was the first time it had generated excitement, and I dropped out and turned professional. For me to do a show where I didn’t touch on that moment would not be right. My grandpa changed my entire life.

You’ve performed for some of the biggest names in the world. Any you’re yet to tick off?

Well, Eminem is a hero of mine, but I don’t even know if I would want to do magic for him, I’d probably be too nervous. We’re into a lot of similar things like comic books and we’ve had similar upbringings, so I see a lot of myself in his story.

But Graham Norton should get me on his couch too — I can’t believe I’ve never done it! That would be a full-circle moment too because he was one of the first famous people that I met when I performed magic in London. My first-ever residency in London was at a place called Too2Much, which is now The Box, and it’s actually next to Underbelly Boulevard, where I’ve been performing for my latest show. He was hosting a night, and he was lovely, so that would be great.

Steven Frayne: Up Close And Magical continues at the Underbelly Boulevard Soho until May 11th