Magic star Philip Escoffey shows off tricks ahead of Wolverhampton show - Video

Philip Escoffey dips his hands in his pocket, and begins to shuffle an imaginary pack of cards.

"I want you to choose a card in your mind, any card, and don't tell me what it is."

He asks four questions about the imaginary card – three of which I decline to answer – before drawing a real pack of cards from his pocket. "What was the card you had imagined?"

"The seven of diamonds". Leaning forward, he opens the pack of cards.

The seven of diamonds is face up. Is that the one you were thinking of?"

Mind-reader Escoffey is one of nine performers who make up the world-renowned Illusionists stage show, which comes to Wolverhampton in October.

Since it was formed two years ago, a show at the Sydney Opera House was seen by 31,000 people, followed by an eight-day stint in Mexico City, which sold 42,000 tickets.

The show at Wolverhampton Civic Hall will follow on from an eight-day run at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

Indeed, the difficult thing has often been convincing people he is not psychic.

"We are all mind readers to some to degree," he says.

"If you pinch a girl's backside, and she slaps you round the face, you don't need to be a mind reader to know what she's thinking."

Impeccably mannered and flamboyantly dressed, Escoffey gives the impression of a man who is constantly sizing people up and second guessing their train of thought. A little gentle probing about the skills required to perform such illusions bears little fruit.

"You're trying to get me to tell you how I do my act," he smiles knowingly.

It seems probability an logic have much to do with it. He quickly rattles off the odds against him successfully guessing my most and least favourite colours on a dice he carries around with him. He gets my favourite colour right, but can only narrow my least favourite down to one in two. Escoffey, who is 42, spent his childhood divided between Switzerland and London, and developed an interest in magic tricks from the age of six or seven.

He put on shows at university, but never seriously considered a career as a performer until 1999.

The Illusionists: Witness The Impossible will be at Wolverhampton Civic Hall on October 8.