IT'S a bit difficult trying to get work done in the classroom when your kids know you're magicians.

But those days are long gone for ex-teachers and now time travelling conjurors, Morgan and West.

"There used to be quite a lot of conversations in the classroom about us being magicians," Rhys Morgan tells me. "For the first three or four months we tried to make sure they didn't know what we did outside of school but after they found out it was 'come on sir, show us a trick' and we would say, 'no get on with your work'."

The cat was well and truly let out of the bag after the pair made an appearance on ITV's Penn & Teller: Fool Us and not only managed to fool the world famous American magicians with their card trick but also won an incredible trip to Las Vegas in the process.

"When we did the Penn and Teller show we were basically doing village halls," Rhys adds, "but it kind of all changed after that."

And not just in the classroom.

"A year before the television show we both managed to get tickets to see them and I remember saying to Rob this could be the only time we get to see them perform live. The very next year it's us performing live, in front of them.

"Then the trip to Vegas, which was very surreal indeed. We were only there for 48 hours but honestly that was more than enough."

Life then just got stranger and stranger for Morgan and West as school work and weekends doing shows soon began to mount up.

"We knew something was going to have to give," he adds, "and you cannot turn down an opportunity like we had. We knew these things don't come around every week and we had no idea where it was going to go but we thought 'if we're going to do, we kind of have to do it now'."

Born and brought up in Wales, Rhys first met Rob while they were both students at Oxford University.

While Rhys enjoyed being on stage as part of the university's theatre scene, Rob was more interested in the technical side.

"I was really into am-dram before I even got to university and then when I got there I threw myself into everything Oxford had to offer. I met Rob on a production of Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and we sort of bonded over some weird lighting design," he jokes, "but then about six months later discovered that we both liked magic. In the end it became a bit of a competition as to who could learn the most tricks."

Then in 2009 the pair were involved in taking a student show up to Edinburgh and decided to put in another application to stage a magic production as well.

"We basically pumped all our student loans into it," Rhys says, "and came up with these characters Morgan and West, Victorian conjurors who find a time machine in 1888 and go and settle in modern day life which they prefer.”

Since taking their act on the road, the duo have now performed at the Edinburgh Fringe numerous times as well as had sell-out performances in Australia, where they were nominated for a comedy award, and South Africa, where they performed at a rather awe-inspiring location.

"We've ticked off four of the seven continents," he says, "which considering how long we've been going I'm pretty pleased with.

"Back in 2014 we had a pretty mad few gigs in South Africa where we took part in the Cape Town Fringe and played three nights at the Cape Town Hall. It's a pretty impressive place in itself but then they told us this was the place Nelson Mandela did his very first speech after being released from prison which we both thought was very cool indeed."

Now they're back in the UK, fresh from performing at Wilton’s Music Hall and Los Angeles’ Magic Castle, with their new show, which is called Parlour Tricks, which as Rhys tells me is 'absolutely chock full of jaw dropping, brain bursting, gasp eliciting feats of magic'.

In Parlour Tricks they'll be returning to a traditional, authentic format - a magic show, set in a Victorian parlour setting - just as it would have been done in the late 19th century which, of course, they can recreate perfectly since they're from the 19th century (they are time-travellers, remember? Keep up!)

"This is our third full show," Rhys says, "and after our previous show, which was quite theatrical, we decided to go back to the magic show format.

"The last one was a bit more of a play filled with the occasional magic tricks as we went on this grand comedy adventure but this time around we just wanted to have a construct which enabled us to do as many mind-boggling tricks as possible.

"In terms of rehearsing the show it has been much easier but it's also enabled us to really go for it in terms of the tricks we've done before and what we're trying to do now.

"When Rob and I first met I was really into Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind and it's that kind of wow factor that we're really going for in this show."

Morgan and West: Parlour Tricks

Colchester Arts Centre

Church Street, Colchester.

Friday, October 21. Doors open 7.30pm, show starts 8pm.

£12, £10 concessions. 01206 500900.

www.colchesterartscentre.com