Carnival

1975

The show in which, at 13, I started smoking.

It was a magic related addiction. I needed to run off stage, downstairs to the dressing room, grab my next magic trick, which somehow involved flash paper, run through the basement and up the stairs to the front-of-house lobby and finally onto the stage where I flashed and ran off again.

I felt the easiest way to light the flash paper would be with a cigarette, and with all the running, I inhaled quite a lot by the time I finished with the bit.

I was hooked and when it came out that I was officially smoking, Linda Reedy (née Boyer), who was playing Rosalie, wouldn't talk to me for a week.

I continued smoking for 26 years. I've quite now and Linda is quite happy about that.