Scott Silven first fell under the spell of magic when, as a five year old, he worked up the confidence to enter a magic shop in Glasgow which is believed to be the oldest such store in the world.

Painted black and with dusty windows, the Tam Shepherds store is full of Victorian display cases containing strange, esoteric objects and its then owner, Roy Walton, took a shine to the youngster and started to teach him the tricks of the trade.  "He had a rule that you started learning magic at the door of the shop, where there was a little cabinet containing more simple tricks," Silven tells FestMag. "The more advanced material was at the back of the shop and after a few years he would invite you up there."

As Silven became a teenager, his years spent studying basic magic tricks became the catalyst for what became his life's calling: the branch of magic known as mentalism, or the theatre of the mind. "This has less to do with props, coins and cards—the usual things that come to mind when you think of a magic show—and more to do with using the audience members' memories, emotions and experiences, and hopefully crafting impossible illusions from those things."