Magician Steven Frayne walks on water leaving the world baffled. Read More and see pictures!

Waterwalker: Steven Frayne takes a stroll on the Thames leaving the world baffled as to how he managed to do his trick - but he keeps schtum about the magic behind it

Everything about 29-year-old Steven Frayne is small, gentle and unassuming.
He’s just 5ft 6in, barely 8st and softly spoken. His waist is teeny, his arms are bird-like and his hands are small, pink and currently rummaging in his enormous Louis Vuitton bag for a pot of hair-styling wax.

‘I was going to put a bit in for the photos, but I can’t find it now,’ he says.
He doesn’t look the sort of man to swallow your gold necklace whole and, minutes later, pull it out of his tummy — straight through the skin. 


Or to walk through glass windows and down the side of buildings. Or levitate both Lindsay Lohan and comic actor James Corden, turn Austrian snow into diamonds and Fanta into Coke, melt coins in his hands and make cardboard butterflies come alive.
Oh yes, or walk on water — he made it halfway across the Thames last summer before he was picked up by a police boat and cautioned. 


But Steven Frayne is otherwise known as Dynamo, the Bradford-born street magician whose extraordinary illusions have left millions amazed, confused, shocked and occasionally scared.

Last week, he was awarded the magic world’s highest honour — Associate Membership of the secret inner sanctum of the Magic Circle — up there with Paul Daniels, David Copperfield and Derren Brown.

In June last year he stunned Londoners when he seemed to float unsupported on the surface of the Thames - the theories were many including hidden clear plastic underneath the surface and invisible wires

‘With a silver star,’ the citation says. ‘Which must be good, mustn’t it?’ he grins shyly. It is indeed. Very few magicians are awarded the AIMC with a silver star. ‘
They say it’s the highest degree you can earn for examination in the Magic Circle, and I’ve not even been examined! My mum will be so proud — they just gave it to me. Can you believe it?’ 

Frankly, yes. Because while he might not look, or act, like a  superstar, pretty much everything Dynamo, 29, has touched over recent years has turned to gold.

Famous fans — many of whom hired him to entertain at their parties and now queue up to appear in his TV series — include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ian McKellen, Jay-Z, Chris Martin and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow (Dynamo blagged his way backstage at a Coldplay concert and impressed Chris Martin’s mum with his card tricks), Will Smith, Jonathan Ross, Wayne Rooney, Paris Hilton . . . the list goes on.

Not forgetting his 1.5 million followers on Twitter and Facebook, and a dedicated band of fans called the Dynamites — who follow him anywhere.

A recent personal appearance at Westfield shopping centre in East London attracted so many the mall had to be closed. And when he appeared at the Whitehaven Festival in Cumbria, instead of the anticipated 300-strong crowd, over 12,000 turned up, sending Health & Safety officials into a right old lather.

None of which is surprising given his mind-boggling tricks.

Take walking on water, for instance. Last June, in front of hundreds watching from Westminster Bridge, he walked (not waded) very carefully halfway across the Thames in front of the Houses of Parliament, before being picked  up by what appeared to be a  police boat. 

Unless he was Jesus Christ, it is highly unlikely he actually walked on water. He did not appear to be suspended by wires, so the general consensus was that he had somehow installed a large piece of clear plastic beneath the water surface and that the ‘police’ were not real officers but on his payroll.

Unbelievable: Dynamo predicted the exact results of Euro 2012 - even down to how many goals Spain would beat Italy by. He presented his betting slip on ITV this morning last week