AN Oxfordshire double-act dared each other into the pinnacle of their pranking pilgrimage: audacious magical mischief on live television.

Sam Strange and Richard Young are best known as magical duo Young and Strange, but in their spare time they are expert prankers.

Putting the other's telephone numbers on a male escort website, covering the other's house in silly string and creating a fake birthday party are just a few of the highlights.

But earlier this month they pulled off a caper to cap them all, directly behind Sky News reporter Ashish Joshi as he gave a live broadcast in front of the Houses of Parliament.

The pair performed a magic trick where Mr Strange appears to shrink his partner's body in front of the camera.

They uploaded the video to Youtube on Tuesday night and have already clocked up more than 85,000 views.

As for Joshi's reaction, the pranksters said he gave them one stern look and they hot-footed it out of his reach before he could admonish them.

Mr Strange, 30, who lives in Kingham near Chipping Norton with wife Sophie, admitted: "We are probably too old to be doing this in the background of a news report, but it is the best feeling in the world when you know you've delivered a good prank."

The pair both grew up in Oxfordshire, the young Sam in Stanton Harcourt and young Richard in Blackbird Leys, and met when they were eight years old.

Each started doing magic at weddings and parties and six years ago they were able to quit the day jobs and go full-time as a touring double act.

As they were free during the daytime, the duo's creative minds started hunting for tricks of a different kind to entertain themselves.

When Mr Strange moved to a new house in Faringdon, Mr Young decided that he had not made enough effort to get to know his neighbours so he went to every house in the street and hand-delivered invitations to a children's birthday party.

It was not until he started getting RSVPs though his door that Mr Strange had any idea of the prank, and then he said: "I realised I would just have to host this party."

As revenge, Mr Strange bought 80 cans of silly string on eBay, waited until Mr Young was out of his house then spent two hours covering the entire place.

In another online auction prank, one time when Mr Strange had left his coat at his partner's house, he listed it for sale on eBay and got friends to bid on it.

Mr Strange said: "People don't appreciate the effort that goes in, they think you're just having a laugh, but part of the appeal is the element of admiration you get from the person you have pranked."