Steve Martin says he ‘has no talent’ – but no one has ever been more wrong

There’s a contradiction to the phenomenon of . On the one hand, the now 78-year-old American comedian is the epitome of what showbiz people might call “The Big Time”. He made what was once the highest-selling comedy record ever, had a string of hit films and TV shows, and coined catchphrases that pretty much everybody could recite (“Well, excuuuuse me!”). But then there are the other parts of him. Offstage, his passions lie far outside the mainstream sensibility: he’s an obsessive and knowledgeable fine art collector with a rare, professional-level skill at the banjo and a lifelong, almost quaint, fascination with close-up magic. Success of his magnitude was never going