HARRY Potter may be a wizard at the box office but he might have missed a trick if it wasn't for professional magician Paul Kieve.

Paul was the only magician to work on any of the Harry Potter films, beginning with The Prisoner of Azkaban. It was during this time that he introduced Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe to the world of magic.

"I was doing incidental visual effects and working with some of the other actors," says Paul.

"I had to teach a few of the kids to do background stuff but not Daniel, who said he couldn't believe I had taught all the other kids magic and not him. So I taught him during his lunch breaks and days off and he became fascinated with it, especially as I would teach him a bit of the history behind the tricks as well. I even took him to the Magic Circle Museum."

Paul joined the world of music at the age of 10 and entered the Young Musician of the Year contest in his teens. His first professional job was at 16 appearing in Sade's pop video Your Love is King.

"I had to double her hands," he says. "They shaved my arms, painted my nails and I did this sleight of hand pretending to be her. I started thinking that this would be better than a real job."

So he left school at 17 to concentrate on magic full-time.

As well as being a performing magician he has also become a leading consultant, the first port of call for stage producers and film-makers.

"I don't do very much performing now because I'm so busy," admits Paul. "I've just completed seven projects in a row, including Zorro at the Folies Bergere and Arabian Nights for the RSC."

His other work includes magic for Scrooge the Musical, with Tommy Steele, and the grand illusions he created for the West End Lord of the Rings production.

Paul's also a collector of magic memorabilia and his massive poster collection forms part of the current Magic Show exhibition at Derby's Quad arts centre.

"My father was a collector of many things and, as a kid, I was taken to auctions on holiday in Cromer and my parents would buy whole boxes of rubbish," says Paul. "In those days you could pick up extraordinary things for not very much. I started collecting books on magic."

His poster collection began 12 years ago while working for Disney in America when he saw a giant poster of Carter the Great and guessed it would fit a space in his home perfectly.

"I can't even judge a parking space but it fitted to the millimetre," says Paul.

Since then he has amassed a massive collection, with many old lithographs dating back a century or more.

"Ones from the great age of magic from the 1930s and earlier are particularly fascinating and collectible.

"If you stumble across a Houdini lithograph it could go for $60-70,000, but I don't have anything on that level.

"Derby has chosen some fascinating posters."

The posters inspired Paul to write the book Hocus Pocus.

"It's about a young magician given a collection of these posters who one day gets too big for his boots and the old magicians in the posters materialise to perform their acts and show how good they were," says Paul.

"I started doing a Hocus Pocus talk at book festivals, then added magic to it and it has now become a show."

Paul will present the show at Quad on January 20 and will then sign copies of the book.

Then it's back to more magic challenges. Find out more about Paul at www.stageillusion.com.

PAUL KIEVE - HOCUS POCUS

WHERE: Quad, Market Place.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 20, 5.15pm.

TICKETS £4 (suits all ages).

CALL: 01332 290606.

MAGIC SHOW EXHIBITION

WHERE: Quad, Market Place, Derby.

WHEN: Until January 31.

ADMISSION: Free.

CALL: 01332 290606.