Piff The Magic Dragon named stage magician of the year

Piff The Magic Dragon has been named stage magician of the year by The Magic Circle.

The honour means Piff’s alter ego, John van der Put, has becomes only the second member of the society to have ever won both that competition, and the close-up magician of the year title.

The comedy magician scooped the title and £1,000 prize at the Magic Circle’s London headquarters, where he was assisted by Mr Piffles, ‘the world’s first card trick performing Chihuahua.

He said: ‘As the world's only remaining magical dragon (discounting any previous, present or future counterfeit Magical Dragons, Russian or otherwise), I am relieved that my species is declining with a bang.

‘The trophy will allow me to achieve one of my all time dreams and sleep on treasure at night. As for Mr Piffles; he's speechless. Lazy.’

Magic Circle president Jack Delvin said: The standard at this year’s event was extraordinarily high, but the Dragon scorched the competition!’

Piff shot to prominence after featuring on Penn and Teller’s ITV series Fool Us – with the performance going viral and attracting 8million views on YouTube. It even spawned a plagiarist, Ukranian Andriy Chekanyuk, who performed a near-identical copy – dragons-suit and all – on a Russian TV show called Surprise Me!

In January 2013, Piff was called to membership of The Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star – the society’s highest level of membership, limited to just 300 magicians worldwide, and which currently includes David Copperfield, Paul Daniels and Lance Burton.

Piff is heading to the Edinburgh Fringe again this year, and is due to take part in Chortle’s Fast Fringe event in London on July 11.

Here he is at a previous Fast Fringe:

Published: 2 May 2013