Nick Spellman - his experience
Nick has kept and worked with animals for all his adult life, borne out of an interest from childhood where he volunteered to help maintain a local private collector's menagerie.
His first ever public animal lecture was at 15 years old, where a local Cub pack invited Nick to bring a selection of animals along in return for a small donation for their maintenance and up-keep. This initial lecture was the catalyst by which he set about offering this service to other clubs and organisations in return for a contribution to the animals care.
His other life-long passion has been performing and actually contemplated a career as a professional actor after several successful summer seasons with the prestigious National Youth Theatre, culminating in the highly acclaimed West End revival of Blitz! co-directed by the writer Lionel Bart.
After leaving school at 16, Nick studied theatre and the performing arts at a local college. To help fund himself through college, he presented his animal displays on weekends.
Upon completion of the course, Nick hosted a season as a Blue Coat for Holiday Club Pontins, honing the art of entertaining children for a mammoth 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for over 6 months. It was here the fascination of children's magic and the bigger stage illusions took hold. With such a captive audience and the expectation for the Blue Coats to present new shows, Nick took the mantle of 'Children's Uncle' and developed routines around props he was able to purchase locally.
Whilst at Pontins, he was talent spotted by one of the UK's leading illusionists and was offered the chance to tour some of Zimbabwe's top hotels as a magician and illusionist followed by pantomime at Liverpool's Empire Theatre alongside Mr.T and Bradley Walsh.
On completion of these contracts, Nick returned home to Hertfordshire and put all this experience into his lectures and included magic in-between each of the animal features. With this format he began offering his services for birthday parties, fast establishing himself as one of the most imaginative and popular children's entertainers in London and the south east.
After an introduction with former children's television favourite, Keith Harris, Nick was offered the opportunity to present his unique style of magic and illusion in a brand new summer spectacular at the Sandcastle, Blackpool alongside Keith, Orville, Cuddles and Ronne Coyles.
The show proved to be a huge success, playing to sell out audiences throughout the season. The whole cast were rebooked to appear the following summer and in a pantomime too.
After several summer seasons, pantomimes and tours with Keith, Nick was offered the chance to appear at Cromer's famous 'End of Pier' show as their first ever illusionist. 
This tested Nick to the limit as the show required every skill including singing, dancing, acting, comedy and, of course, performing his specialty act.
At the end of the season, Nick again applied this wealth of experience to his animals and magic lecture parties. Demand and appreciation from both children and adults was immense. His show encapsulated his passion for entertaining and magic with his knowledge and interest of his animals and the natural world.
During this time, Nick was invited to appear on the Chuckle Brothers UK tour show as a support act as a temporary replacement to the Paten Brothers who had other commitments.
It was whilst at a private event, Nick was approached by the executive producer of The Disney Channel and was offered the opportunity to appear with Big Dave (Dave Benson Phillips) and Little Alex (Alex Lovell) on the flagship under 5's programme, Playhouse Disney.
On the strength of this initial walk-on on set interview, Nick was offered his own programme which he wrote and presented. Paws - a daily animal show - ran for over 3 years.
During his tenure with Disney, Nick presented the prestigious celebrational video of Disneyland, Florida which also marked the 100 years anniversary since the birth of Walt Disney..jpg)
© Copyright The Walt Disney Company
Despite all these amazing seasonal and television distractions, Nick still maintained his position as one of the south of the UK's most sought after children's entertainers, providing his amazing blend of animals with his specialist presentation and entertaining skills.
He has performed at some of the most famous land marks in London and been invited to entertain the families of many of the UK's most well known politicians, dignitaries and celebrities.
Hamleys Toy Store in Regent Street, London have had exclusive booking rights over Nick for the last 4 years so that they can host the most amazing birthday parties in-store for their private clients.
In September 2007, Hamleys trusted Nick to present the inaugural toy awards at Claridge's Hotel in London.
In recent years, Nick has concentrated his talents into the business of providing his famous lectures for all types of children and family based events. Behind the scenes, his ever growing collection of animals has become a family venture. With full time professional help from Stuart, Nick also relies on the support from his wife, Debbie, and 2 children, Belle 5 and Toby 2, who look destined to follow their Daddy's footsteps.
The AnimalMan Experience with Nick Spellman is the perfect blend of animal expertise combined with an unrivaled 20 year career working with some of the UK's best loved children's entertainers and television presenters.
You might be interested to note other television credits include...
Independent television production company, Mentorn, featured Nick and his experience for their documentary on 'Fantastic Mr Dahl', an intimate look at Roald Dahl, featured on the BBC.
And on the ITV network...
Nick and his animals appeared on several episodes of 'Noah's Ark' starring Anton Rodgers and Angela Thorne.
Nick and his animals were featured on 'Eureka TV' alongside Fearne Cotton for CiTV.
And Nick has guest appeared as an animal expert and as a magician on Carlton Kids alongside Naomi Wilkinson.