What are you like in a relationship? are you a giver or a taker?

Somewhere in the middle would be the right and proper answer to that one. Jill and I are quite lucky because we both work in the same field. Jill is director of the Market Place Theatre in Armagh and I'm artistic director of Cahoots Northern Ireland, and Jill would be the taker in that she would often take our productions into the theatre and I'd be the giver in that I supply them.

Jill and I met when I used to be an actor. We had met a few times because the theatre circuit in Belfast is quite small. But we only started going out after she came to see a show I was doing at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. It was about the showbands.

We'd a mutual friend who was also in the show and afterwards we all went out for a drink together. And that was the moment when I realised that this was the woman for me.

That was nine years ago, and we've now been married for five years. I proposed - and I think it was quite romantic. Myself and Zoe Seaton, who runs Big Telly theatre company with Jill, were working in Oxford and Jill came over for the last week of the production. I'd it all arranged - I asked her to marry me and then we flew off to Paris for a few days.

Now, we live at Gawley's Gate, which is right beside Lough Neagh, and is a fantastic place to being up Jamie. And since Jill works in Armagh and I work in Belfast, it's about a 35-minute commute for each of us.

We're looking forward to our summer holiday; we tend to go to Yorkshire, where Jill has a lot of relatives. Besides, while Jamie is still so young, we don't want to venture too far.

ONLY CHILD OF ONE OF A CROWD?

I'm one of a small crowd - I have one sister Joanne, who is three years older. Joanne works in law and has been away from home since she was 17. She now lives just outside Luton, but for the past year she has been on a secondment over here and has been living in Hillsborough with her husband and little girl, Anna.

But, since childhood, Joanne and I have always been close. I think because there was just the four of us at home we were always that sort of family, although I have a large extended family of cousins. I am, however, the only McEneaney boy, and so, too, is Jamie. I grew up in Armagh, which is a great place. There's a really lovely sense of community there.

From the age of four or five I'd say I was a 'magic nut'. The only thing I ever wanted was a magic set - or a set of drums. I love the fact that you can give a five-year-old kid a box of magic tricks and within an hour he can fool you. Even before I went to college I had mastered a lot of table magic, and by 13 I was giving public performances. I did a lot of children's parties. It wasn't easy producing a 40-minute show on a tight budget of zero, and there were many occasions when children were saying: "I know how to do that. I know how that works." I remember once for a cabaret dad had knocked me up a box so that I could cut someone in half. I persuaded my cousin Donna to get into it, and when she got back out she was black and blue, although the trick had worked. That was a big learning curve, especially for Donna who told me in no uncertain terms that she was never doing it again. Indeed, for some time after that, I gave up illusions and stuck to cards.

But I'd also kept up my drum playing and had joined a band called Heat the Beans. When I was 17 we were invited to do a three-month tour of America, and that was fantastic.

But when that ended, my interest in magic was still there, and I studied performing arts at Belfast Institute. After that I acted at the Lyric and the Abbey, as well as across the water. My stage career was going very well, and yet I knew that acting was not for me. I did not have the passion for it that I could see in other people, and you need that because it's such a dog eat dog world.

Then I got a commission to write a magic show for a children's theatre company. It was very successful and I was invited to tour a number of coun-

Tries, and that's how, almost by accident, cahoots was founded. five years on, we're just back from the smithsonian festival in washington. really, we are taking the art of magic and melding it with theatre.

And I still love magic as much as I did when I was a kid. The first magician I watched on TV was David Nixen, and then I became addicted to Paul Daniels. And yet magic is such a difficult art form to understand because essentially it's about deceiving people and people do not like to be deceived; it's about fooling people, and people do not like to be fooled. So, the other side of it has to be about entertaining people, and that has to be greater than those other two factors.

I've done some pretty impressive illusions. I remember we were given the run of Belfast City Hall and we set up all these illusions to tell the history of the building. One was called The Table of Death, where someone had to lie on a table, while steel spikes were suspended 9ft above them. A rope holding the spikes in place was burning, and the person had to escape before the spikes fell - not the sort of stunt that you want to go wrong.

ARE YOU CLOSER TO YOUR MUM OR DAD?

I think a wee boy is definitely more inclined to sway to his mum, while a wee girl goes towards her dad. I think I was probably closer to mum when I was growing up, although I also had a brilliant relationship with dad.

And no matter what I wanted to do - whether magic or music - I was always encouraged. At 17, when I told dad I was going to America with the band, he thought it was a great opportunity for me to see the world. Now, as a father myself, I wonder how I would feel if Jamie came home at that age and said the same thing.

No one else had worked in the entertainment business in our family. Mum worked in school meals and dad worked in the timber industry. The only tenuous link I had with magic was through my middle name Bosco, although I didn't discover that until a few years back. My parents had given me the middle name Bosco in memory of my father's cousin, Bosco Trainor, who was a fantastic pianist, but who had died young. I'd always been embarrassed by the name, so much so I asked teachers at school not to call it out when they were doing the roll. Alas, when I was going to America with the band, my pals saw the name on my passport and since then they've called me Bosco. But, later, I was at a huge magic festival and discovered the patron saint to magicians and jugglers in Italy is Bosco, so it's not so bad after all.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

That's a really easy one - Jamie. I think he is the best trick I have performed. Before he came along so many people said that life would never be the same again, and it's true.

And I'm also proud to be a member of the Ulster Society of Magicians, which I've belonged to since I was 13. Back then, my father would drive me to Belfast once a month to attend meetings. Today there are very few members - about 20 - and we could certainly do with some younger recruits. Most of the members just love magic, but aren't interested in giving public performances. Every three years the Ulster Society of Magicians hosts the International Magicians Convention in Belfast, and this weekend's event will include a special tribute to a man called Billy McComb, who was from Northern Ireland. He died last year at the age of 84. He'd led a fascinating life, ending up as vice-president of the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Billy invented magic tricks, and invention is the backbone of the industry. Our gala show for the public tomorrow night will be dedicated to Billy.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST ASHAMED OF?

All the tricks that go wrong. But, seriously, I can say hand on heart that I'm not ashamed of anything. I have been disappointed with things - like anybody who writes and produces theatre shows, there are some shows that are better than others.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A FORTUNE-TELLER?

I have, of course. But I'm a complete sceptic. In the world that I belong to what I do is devise illusion to deceive people, so that makes you quite cynical. I'm also very good at working out puzzles because my job is inventing them. So, when I go to see a fortune-teller I'm wearing a different hat to most people - I'm looking for style and technique. Having said that, I know many people that do believe in them.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A LAPDANCING CLUB?

No, I have not. Unfortunately one of those has not yet opened in Gawley's Gate, but you never know ¿

HAVE YOU ANY PHOBIAS?

I hate enclosed spaces, which people find amazing because in illusions I'm pushing other people into boxes or tight little spaces. People who get into those contraptions are called box jumpers and that's something that I could never do - because of my phobia and my size. Box jumpers need to be very thin and agile. I'm also not fussed on heights, yet for years I was a stilt-walker - it's not difficult once you get the hang of it, and it's a different form of clowning. But I don't really mind flying as long as I don't stare out the window.

DO YOU TIP IN RESTAURANTS?

I do, if it's good. As I mentioned, we are just back from Washington and in the States tipping is an art form. My view is that good service is hard to come by, and when it does come your way you should acknowledge it.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?

This harks back to my logical head, with half my life being about magic and illusion. I'd sit on the fence here, with everything crossed. For me the evidence is not there, and for everything I work on I need a lot of persuasion.

QUICK DEATH OR TIME TO PREPARE?

Time to prepare, but with that time in hours rather than days, weeks, months or years. I think that I could see all the people, say all the things and do all the things I would need to do within that time. But it's such a big question, and I'm seeing me being 90 and being told I'm going to die, as opposed to it being tomorrow. When I think about it, at 34, I want it to be years not hours.

REGRETS ¿ HAVE YOU HAD A FEW?

You wouldn't have a pulse if you didn't have regrets, but regrets are something that you keep to yourself. Not everything can always go to plan or work out the way you want it to.

International Gala Show of Magic and Illusion, featuring magicians and illusionists from around the world, the Studio Theatre, Belfast's Waterfront Hall, Sunday, 7.30pm. Admission is £12/£10. For tickets, tel box office: 9033 4455