Without so much as a sniff of a magic wand, a top hat or a rabbit, Chris Nicholson can leave people with their mouths hanging open, unsure whether to believe their eyes.

While other 17-year-old schoolboys are working on chat-up lines, Chris is busy perfecting magic tricks on his hapless victims, the Brighton and Hove public.

The teenager's sleight of hand and cunning trickery has won him a starring role in new TV magic show Playing Tricks, which starts on Monday.

The series is a blend of David Blaine and Channel Four's Trigger Happy TV and involves Chris and six fellow magicians pulling the wool over the eyes of random passers-by - whether telling them their pin numbers, leaning forward to incredible 25 degree angles or pouring red and white wine out of the same bottle.

Chris, of Kingsway, Hove, said: "It is original and will really shock people.

"Magic isn't done in a studio any more with magic boxes. It's done on the streets with everyday stuff. You get stronger reactions when people are not expecting you to do a trick."

To prove his point, Chris makes a move towards my (expensive) leather bag. One of his favourite tricks is to cut the handles of people's bags in half. Before the horrified owner has finished calculating the cost of buying a new one, he (somehow) puts it back together again.

Another favourite is the Shirt Lift - where he removes a person's shirt without ripping it or losing any buttons. He once dislocated his shoulder attempting it.

But he can't, or won't, explain the trick, beyond saying: "You need to see it. There's no explanation."

He practises new tricks on his long-suffering mother and his girlfriend has seen some of them so many times she has figured them out.

Occasionally Chris uses his magical skills to charm her - but he refuses to let anyone, including his girlfriend, in on his secrets.

He said: "The problem is there are certain moves in magic and if you give one away it stops you doing other tricks. Anyway, it's not half as much fun. The whole point of being a magician is winding people up and confusing them."

Certainly when Chris takes his act on to the streets of Brighton, he leaves behind a trail of puzzled people.

His first two victims look underwhelmed when he tells them he's a magician, looking at him as if to say "so what". But after one card trick, he has them in the palm of his hand.

One man can only stand there swearing in disbelief. Another screams: "He has done the best trick ever."

Leila, from Brighton, says: "It's sleight of hand but I didn't see a damn thing."

Taz from Shoreham can't say much except: "That was amazing."

Another man says: "I don't suppose you're going to tell us how you do that are you?"

Chris isn't. He just smiles. He loves it when they're confused.

But when it comes to David Blaine, Chris admits magicians are as mixed up as the public, unable to decide if it's all a con.

The teenager, who has visited his hero's temporary home above the Thames five times already, said: "Everyone has been arguing about it. Some of the magicians think it's all real. Nobody has really figured it out yet."

Derren Brown also gets the thumbs up and, like Brown, Chris is working on a version of Russian Roulette - though without the guns. It involves long spikes and polystyrene cups and sounds painful.

Chris says two years ago, Playing Tricks would not have made it to the screen, with magic shows buried in the TV graveyard labelled "variety".

Blaine changed all that and is also the man credited for reawakening Chris's love of trickery.

Yet it was a different conjurer who was responsible for hooking a young Chris on magic in the first place.

Sheepishly he admits: "Any magician will tell you the same story. I got the Paul Daniels Magic Set for a Christmas present. It was just a hobby that got too serious."

As a child he visited Hamleys in London and was amazed by the confusion caused by its in-store magicians.

When he got older he dropped magic for a while, knowing it wasn't the coolest of pastimes.

Then five years ago, he saw the still little-known David Blaine on television.

He said: "I'd never seen magic done like that before and it made me realise it was going to be a big thing. I sat down with a book and taught myself sleight of hand.

"For the first couple of years I completely copied everything Blaine did. Then I started developing my own stuff and tried putting a bit of comedy into it."

Fellow students at Blatchington Mill School, where Chris is now in the sixth form, provided a willing audience, preferring to watch Chris steal someone's watch or do a card trick than get on with lessons.

At 15, Chris performed for the famous Magic Circle and established himself on the circuit.

That led to jobs as an in-store magician for both Harrods and Hamleys, where he still works.

Witness Chris's tricks for yourself by tuning in to new ten-part teen comedy reality series Playing Tricks on satellite channel Trouble every weekday between Monday and Friday, October 31, at 4.30pm, repeated at 9.55pm.