PIFF-TACULAR: On the Road.

To be an entertaining magician, you must stand out.

Many magicians try this by adding comedy. They fail. Their magical mental powers fail to alert them that you'll find almost as many magicians doing comedy as you will doing straight magic.

So into this field stomps Piff the Magic Dragon, the magical masterpiece of John van der Put. Inside an electric-green dragon suit that adds a third to his size, Piff performs magic effects to punctuate his stand-up comedy routine.

He's a comedian first and a magician second, rather than the funny being added as "stand out" tack-on. As Piff says in his pitifully sad way, "When I'm not doing magic, I'm being funny, so laugh."

Without the costume and the stand-up comedy (as opposed to simply adding humor to an act, which is easier to do), Piff the Magic Dragon would be just another cherubic-faced magician or comedian. Inside the suit, he's funny and forlorn and you share his heart's desires (often princesses) and his heartaches (often attention-hungry audience members).

Piff stands out not because of the gimmick of the dragon costume, but because he is, in a word, Piff-tacular.

Daniel G Taylor