Piff the Magic Dragon in... Jurassic Bark

“Mr Piffles is a stunt chihuahua,” says the voiceover at the beginning of the show, inducing an air of hushed excitement amongst the audience. Will there be backflips? Somersaults? Will he free himself from the jaws of a crocodile right at the crucial moment? Well, no, there’s no time for all that. Because tiny Mr Piffles spends most of the show falling asleep on the winged collar of his dragon costume.

For spectators in search of high octane entertainment, the show falls well short of the mark. But for those who enjoy watching a man dressed as a dragon performing some reasonably impressive tricks, with the odd satirical joke thrown in for good measure, Jurassic Bark comes up trumps.

With any magic show, the "how do they do it?" factor is integral, and there are certainly moments of wonder during Piff’s performance. What is lacking, though, is something truly spectacular to set it apart from other comedy magic shows – some kind of extraordinary, death defying stunt to really make it special. Much is made of disgruntled Piff’s talent compared with his near narcoleptic pooch, but the bigger tricks do not feel celebrated enough, and the magician’s lack of enunciation means that important proclamations sometimes slip into the ether. It may not set the world alight, but Jurassic Bark offers a fun hour of canines and card tricks scarcely found elsewhere at the festival.