John van der Put (born 9 June 1980) is an English magician and comedian, who performs under the stage name Piff the Magic Dragon.

A winner of multiple awards from British magic societies, he toured as a supporting act for Mumford and Sons and has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent.

[6] With fellow alumni of the CSSD Alexis Terry, Maya Politaki, and Lucy Cullingford, he co-founded the theatrical cabaret company standnotamazed, becoming their artistic director.

[10][11] Van der Put also had a supporting role in Derek Walcott's 2008 operatic production of Seamus Heaney's The Burial at Thebes at Shakespeare's Globe.

[14] Regarding his earlier pre-Piff magician career, asked whether or not it was a comedy act also, van der Put said "Not intentionally.

Because for the comedy, you can rewrite a joke pretty quickly, but to make a magic trick work it’s usually at least a month or two in R&D prototyping.

[15]Piff the Magic Dragon has appeared regularly in shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, debuting at the 2009 Free Fringe Festival with a solo show that broke the record for highest takings in one night, and being nominated for the inaugural 2012 Time Out and Soho Theatre Cabaret Award.

[11] He has had national tours of the UK and Australia, including runs at the Soho Theatre and Sydney Opera House.

Penn subsequently revealed the method they gave on air was "kinda sorta wrong" and Piff just played along.

[24] As Piff, van der Put was a support act for band Mumford & Sons on their 2012 Tour of Two Halves.

The band first discovered him when they both appeared in the benefit concert The Secret Policeman's Ball 2012, and included him in their Galway Gentlemen of the Road stopover and on the cover of their album Babel.

In that round, a signed card reappeared in a sealed dog-food can, with special guest judge Neil Patrick Harris using his Golden Buzzer to send Piff straight to the quarterfinals.

That week's act, which involved firing Mr. Piffles from a cannon and the reappearance of a signed bill inside a walnut, did not receive enough votes for him to win, and instead placed him in the Top 10.

[citation needed] He returned as a guest performer on AGT's 2016 America's Got Talent Holiday Spectacular[30] and in 2017 during Season 12.

[34] van der Put appeared in the ninth season of Queer Eye in 2024 when he was nominated by Simone, as well as fellow magicians Penn & Teller.

[37] Van der Put served as consultant to Penn and Teller, and helped develop the Vanishing African Spotted Pygmy Elephant Act.

[38] He also served as a magic consultant for the theatre company Theatre-Rites, for their production of Mojo,[39] as well as to Heston Blumenthal, who said van der Put worked on magic water for his restaurant The Fat Duck: "When two people ask for still and sparkling, we’ll pour it from the same bottle without any physical divide.

[15] When asked his opinion in an interview regarding the claim of some religious fundamentalists that dragons were actually fire-breathing dinosaurs, van der Put said: I mean, what do you do?

[15]On the subject of religion, van der Put also said: "So, my joke with Penn [Jillette] is always that at some point he’s going to be renouncing his atheism and jump on the God bandwagon.