Long before Stephen Mulhern joined the cast of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway - and even before he hosted Britain's Got More Talent and Catchphrase - the London-born presenter and comedian was on our television screens performing magic.
Stephen, now 44, was just 21 when he began presenting CITV in 1998 and soon got his very own show, Finger Tips, which he co-presented with Fearne Cotton from 2001 until 2003 and with Naomi Wilkinson in 2004. The series was aimed at children and saw presenters try easy child-friendly cooking and baking recipes and make games and crafts. On one particular episode, Stephen decided to show viewers a cool magic trick - and explain how it's done.
A keen magician ever since he was a child, Stephen had an extensive repertoire of magic tricks in his back pocket by the time he was a teenager, and he thought Finger Tips would be a great opportunity to teach his young viewers something different. The Magic Circle, an elite group of magicians of which Stephen had been a member since he was just 17 years old, disagreed.
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So angered by Stephen for showing viewers how he performed a trick, they banned him from the group. He was later invited back to The Magic Circle, only to be banned again when the episode of Finger Tips which saw him explain a magic trick was re-broadcast on television.
Stephen explained in 2015: "I was doing a kids TV show called 'Finger Tips' with Fearne Cotton. I think if you don't show kids how to do a trick then you'll never get a new breed of magicians, so I suggested we teach a new trick on the show.
"The trick was to put a box on your head and turn this ratchet so it looks like your head is spinning, so I did it on Fearne, and then showed them how to make it. Well, The Magic Circle deemed it too good to reveal, so they suspended me."
Stephen later told Heat magazine: "[Later], I got back into The Magic Circle, but CITV started repeating the show. Every time they repeat it, I get suspended! It's ridiculous. You couldn't write it!"
Stephen doesn't perform magic on television as much anymore, but he can sometimes be seen performing sleight of hand on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. But he'll probably keep away from showing viewers how his tricks are done!
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