AFTER five years away from TV due to a career-threatening illness, Bradford’s superstar magician Dynamo returns with a jaw-dropping new TV special.

And he says that, being a “veteran of self-isolation” after being quarantined in hospital, led him to re-evaluate his approach to magic.

Dynamo, who grew up as Steven Frayne in Delph Hill near Wyke, stopped making his hit UKTV show Magician Impossible in 2014. “I was just making magic to fit into the schedule, and didn’t really enjoy it anymore,” he said. “I missed that live show experience.”

He spent the next couple of years doing magic on stage, touring the world, and performing for 12,000 people at London’s O2 Arena. But in summer 2017 Dynamo, who in his teens suffered from Crohn’s disease, went to hospital with food poisoning and ended up having to take two years off. In March 2018, he posted a video on social media explaining the effects of his medication regime; he’d put on weight and developed a rash, and he revealed he’d developed chronic arthritis, leaving him unable to shuffle cards because of the pain in his hands.

Now he’s back on TV, with new Sky One series Dynamo: Beyond Belief. Following him around the world, the show sees his spine-tingling encounter with a Geisha in Tokyo, making vodka shots turn to ice in Russia, and embarking on a daring adventure in Mexico. He also drives a taxi backwards through central Moscow - blindfolded.

Dynamo, 37, says he’s in “85per cent” full health. “In some ways, it’s made the TV show have more meaning. I’ve put my heart and my soul into it, a lot of the ideas came whilst I was in hospital,” he said. The three episodes follow him from the start of illness to hospitalisation. “I’ve gone through something horrific and come out the other side, and I’m able to share that story. In some ways it’s timely with what everyone’s going through right now,” he said.

Having arthritis - “the worst thing that could happen to a magician” - also led him to re-evaluate: “I couldn’t even hold cards, I had to find a whole new approach to magic. The magic in this series is very different; luckily, throughout my rehabilitation, and working with physios, I was able to get a lot of my skillset back. In some ways I’m a better magician than I was before I got sick.”

He’s full of praise for the doctors who did “such an amazing job working with me, plus the nurses and staff”. These are the unsung heroes, they’re the ones really creating magic out there. Right now, the whole country is appreciating what they’re doing.

"I was on my balcony clapping, like everybody else. I think the show in some ways is dedicated to the people who are doing real magic out there."

Dynamo points out he's "almost been a veteran of self-isolation, because when I was in hospital, they quarantined me because they thought I was contagious. So, for the first couple of weeks, I was having to isolate."

And he spent a lot of his childhood on his own in his bedroom, practising magic and reading books.

He has some advice for us all going forward; create structure in your day, keep in touch with people and see it as the perfect opportunity to learn a new skill.

"Isolation is only as bad as we let it make us feel," he suggests. "And if we treat it from a different perspective, then we can make the most of it.

"If we all use the time wisely, we can hopefully come out of the other end a better person."

* Dynamo: Beyond Belief is on Sky One on Thursday April 9.