4:15pm Monday 24th May 2010
By Tania Deaville
“You might have heard of my older brother” uttered Piff in his typically dry, sarcastic-sounding manner as he skulked on to the stage in his one-piece green dragon outfit to the tune of Puff The Magic Dragon. However, his looks and manner of speaking made him resemble a younger and wackier version of Jack Dee.
Appearing exactly like he was going to entertain a party of under-fives, Piff’s magic and comedy act was aimed at adults, making it unusual, but the contrasts between the costumes, jokes and tricks made it somewhat ambivalent, as though it hadn’t quite found its niche.
Piff picked out audience members to demonstrate he was a dab-hand at card tricks, the most impressive of which culminated in the winning card being placed on a laptop screen, before Piff went off stage before reappearing in a film on the computer, retrieving the card from the inside.
With a goldfish co-star who appeared to speak through a microphone in Chris The Mind-Reading Fish to discover the word an audience member had read in a book, the tricks were creative. A pet chihuahua was also introduced before a guillotine trick to add cuteness. It then reappeared at the end of the show when Piff asked it: “Are you hungry?” as he explained how the show relied on donations, and needed a full house paying two pounds per head to cover costs.
This quirky show, which has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, included some novel humour and stunts.
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