DYNAMO has talked about how growing up in Bradford has prepared him for performing his magic across the world ahead of his new series being screened.

He said growing up in the city on council estates meant: “It set me up to be in a position where now when I go anywhere in the world, I feel comfortable.

"I can be in the favelas in Brazil or I can be in Clarence House with the royal family” he told The Travel Diaries podcast hosted by Holly Rubenstein.

Speaking about the places he has travelled to around the world, he chose Bradford as the first place he fell in love with while his earliest travel memory was going to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, US, with his great grandparents before he was 10 and visiting a magic shop there.

The magician, whose real name is Steven Frayne, said London, where he now lives was also a favourite place.

It was the scene of one of his greatest illusions when he walked on water on the River Thames, an ambition he said was fostered when he was thrown from the dam which separates the Delph Hill and Woodside estates.

He could not swim and was saved by a friend Wayne Jowett. "Ever since that moment I had this burning ambition to walk on water and not be scared again," he said.

In the podcast he also talks about his health problems which in the past couple of years have seen him develop arthritis and hospitalised by a case of food poisoning which affected his Crohn's disease.

He said: "I've had a real tough journey over the last couple of years. I'm leaning new ways to deal with it.

"I've had different symptoms happening because of the food poisoning that I got a couple of years ago which has led on to new experiences through my health with arthritis which as a magician is not ideal."

He said that one point he could not even shuffle cards and doctors told him he might never perform magic again.

"I've never been the sort of person who lets things hold me back," he added. "I do the impossible, I'm not going to go out like this."

He took the opportunity of being confined to hospital - for two months in quarantine because they thought his illness might be contagious - developing new magic for his little black book and now he feels like his old self again.

Dynamo will be using some of those tricks in his series, called Beyond Belief, which will be a three-part special to be shown on Sky One at Easter. Sky describe it as a gripping documentary as Dynamo takes viewers on a journey across the globe "performing close-up miracles and heart-stopping magic".