THE lovely Debbie McGee remembered me from last time I interviewed her.

I was "a nice friendly person", she recalled. This seems to indicate that not everyone is as bright and pleasant to the woman who made her name attending to now-husband Paul Daniels' every magical need as his assistant in his stage and TV act.

To be honest, Mr and Mrs Daniels are probably on quite a few people's list of celebs-you-love-to-hate. The Jeremy Beadles and Michael Winners of the entertainment world who seem, deliberately or not, to attract public dislike for no apparent reason apart from the fact they're more successful and richer than most of us.

That list might also include nightclub impresario Peter Stringfellow, the newly-slim Vanessa Feltz, larger-than-life former Emmerdale star Lisa Riley... in fact, everyone who features alongside Paul and Debbie in the current TV commercial for a certain brand of lager, singing, for want of a better word, and generally sending themselves up. No doubt they'd say they're laughing at themselves.

Ask McGee what on earth possessed her and Paul to do the advert? "Could it have been a good fee?," she responds. "What happened was, we were sent the script, which we read and thought it was going to be funny, and thought, 'we've got to do it'. So we accepted it.

"I would have to say that if we were asked again, I would do it again. We had such fun recording it with everybody. We had three days and nights of filming from very early morning to late at night. It was a good experience."

So too, she reports, was the first tour of her very own dance company Ballet Imaginaire last year. Having trained with the Royal Ballet and performed with the Iranian National Ballet, McGee's dancing career was halted by the outbreak of the Gulf War. She returned home, auditioned to become Paul Daniel's magic assistant and ended up marrying him.

Having her own company was always an ambition and, having persuaded Daniels to sign the cheque to fund it, she formed it last year with her as artistic director and choreographer, and toured with a programme of ballet excerpts. This time she is touring a brand new ballet Phantom The Ballet which, as you'll have guessed, is based on the story of the Phantom Of The Opera.

"I had the idea for Phantom before I started the company because I always thought it would be a great subject for a ballet, even if it was not me doing it. Then, when I set up the company, I thought I'd be able to do it one fine day," she explains.

That day has come with the tour opening in Darlington in mid-September not, as you might think, because of Daniels' connections with the area - he was born in South Bank, Middlesbrough - but simply because the Civic were the first to book it. "But I have lots of friends in the Darlington area," she adds.

"Phantom is a narrative ballet, obviously. I have thought like making a movie with different scenes to tell the story, based on classical ballet. But I've created some more comedic cameo roles as well."

The company is still self-funded although she's hoping to attract business sponsorship soon. Daniels has again designed the scenery, posters and programmes. "That's a big help," she says.

In fact, he's been very supportive about the whole thing. "After the first one I did, he said he knew I would create something that was good but had no idea it would be at the level it was."

Although the BBC shows no sign of asking Daniels to bring his magic show back to TV screens, he and McGee have had plenty of exposure on the box of late. There was, most famously, that Louis Theroux documentary in which he - and the cameras, of course - followed the couple around at home and work, presenting a remarkably intimate portrait of their lives.

SURELY she realised that such a programme would cause quite a stir? "I didn't," she says. "I had no idea but the reaction was really good."

The couple have been in Los Angeles recently to pick up a Lifetime Achievement in Magic award from American magicians. Daniels has also been working on a documentary for the BBC this autumn - "but I'm not allowed to give any details", she adds mysteriously.

McGee already has a number of ideas in mind for the third tour of Ballet Imaginaire, waiting to see how this autumn tour goes before committing herself. There's also the possibility of a trip to America with her husband, who's mulling over work offers he's received from there.

McGee isn't the first person to turn the Phantom Of The Opera into a piece of theatre. Perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musical production is still running in London's West End and around the world, will turn up to see her version. "There's a possibility," she admits. "I know his office have heard of my production and were very interested. One of the guys in his office told Paul that they had heard how good it was."

* Phantom The Ballet is at Darlington Civic Theatre from September 12-15. Call the box office (01325) 486555