PENN JILLETTE: "TRUMP'S HAIR LOOKS LIKE COTTON CANDY MADE OF P*SS"
The 6ft 5in Vegas magic giant is finally bringing his act to British theatres alongside Piff The Magic Dragon. Over a transatlantic chinwag, the loudest atheist in showbusiness lays into Donald, doffs his cap to Hitch, and explains why Vegas has more car washes than you'd ever think.
By Danni Levy
Some blokes go quietly. Penn Jillette has never been one of them.
The Greenfield, Massachusetts native stands six foot five in his stocking feet, has worn the same black suit and single red fingernail for half a century, and has spent the best part of fifty years gobbing off about magic while his silent business partner Teller does the actual sleight of hand. They met at a Renaissance fair in 1974, hit Vegas in the eighties, and have just clocked twenty five years headlining at The Rio, a residency that has outlasted half the casinos on the Strip and at least one wannabe dictator's first tilt at the White House.
You'll know Penn from Penn & Teller: Fool Us, the show where the world's cockiest illusionist sits in judgement over every up and coming card mechanic on the planet, cackling, calling out, and occasionally getting properly mugged off by some absolute weapon in a cardigan with a Sharpie and a packet of cards. One of the lads who turned up, took the mickey and walked off with the prize was Piff The Magic Dragon, otherwise known as John van der Put, a Forest Hill boy who flogged his soul to a green dragon onesie, won over Vegas, and has been making grown men snort lager up their noses ever since.
Now the pair are coming home. Or at least, Piff is. This September, Piff & Pop's Magic Shoppe rolls into nine British theatres, kicking off on the 10th in Bournemouth and rinsing through Cardiff, Brighton, London, Birmingham, Manchester, York, Newcastle and Glasgow. "Pop" is Penn's onstage alter ego: a sort of evangelical deadbeat dad cashing in on his more famous magical son, complete with Mr Piffles, the world's only magic performing chihuahua. It is, by Penn's own admission, properly mental.
It is also Penn's first proper UK run without Teller in fifty years, and Piff's first homecoming gig in over a decade. The man who once dropped 105lb (just shy of eight stone, lads) on a brutal potato regime that very nearly finished him off, who counted Christopher Hitchens as a mate, who used to call himself a libertarian until he got a good look at where libertarianism had gone, has plenty to say.
He always does. We rang him up. He didn't hold back.
1) You teaming up with Penn Jillette & Piff the Magic Dragon feels like chaos on paper, how does the dynamic actually work on stage when you have both built careers on controlling the room in totally different ways
We wouldn't be brave enough to do this cold. We've done shows. We worried about that exact thing, and then . . . at a low stakes show, we just did it. We wrote 20 minutes of stuff and did 45 when we got excited and the audience was with us. We have very different styles, but we've watched each other so much and we are such close friends, we find the way.
So, low stakes warm up, no fistfights, finished a quarter of an hour over the allotted slot. So far, so promising.
2) Piff's whole thing is sarcastic, low energy anti showmanship, does that clash with your big loud evangelical style or make it better
I believe that's the best thing about it. Piff plays Piff, his style is the show. And then Pop comes in. His deadbeat dad trying to cash in on his son, and Pop is . . how should we say . . . big, loud and evangelical. It allows us to be even more ourselves. I am, god help us, even louder than usual.
Volume warning, then. Bring earplugs and a sense of humour.
3) You have spent decades exposing how magic works, does working with Piff push you to reinvent the trick or is it more about reinventing the attitude
It's really funny. The angle we're playing of the whole show is the Pop is either a believer or a con man (news shows us it doesn't matter, they're both bad) and Piff is a skeptic. In this show we actually give some lines that I've said on stage as Penn, to Piff. Piff is the skeptic. Piff is my mouthpiece even as I'm the antagonist.
A magician handing his best lines to another magician. Generous, that. Almost suspicious.
4) Piff came through Penn & Teller: Fool Us and impressed you early, what did he do that made you think right this bloke is the real deal.
I have to answer this with a tautology. I knew right away he was the real deal, because he's the real deal. Love at first sight.
Couldn't have put it better ourselves. Mainly because we couldn't have spelt tautology.
5) Is this show just two magicians sharing a stage or are you trying to deliberately mess with what a magic show even is in 2026
Hey, you tell me: It's Piff and me! We are really pushing it out beyond magic show. We don't know what this is, and we don't care, we just like it and think others will too.
Translation for the lads at the back: turn up, find out, drink up. Exactly the right pitch.
6) You have always said magic should be honest about being a lie, do you think audiences today are more or less gullible than when you started?
It seems our audiences, both P&T's and Piff's are on board. I don't know about the world (there's some evidence people will believe anything) but our audiences are self-selected. We've been around a while.
7) You have done Vegas for decades, what is the one thing about that world that outsiders still completely misunderstand?
Well, Vegas is a working town full of humans. It's not just The Strip. We have blood drives and car washes.
Sin City has a Tesco. Who knew.
8) You have worked with Teller longer than most marriages last, what is the closest you have come to properly falling out?
I don't remember either of us ever quitting or threatening to. Because we only care about the show and not getting along, we always share that . . . so we get along.
Fifty years and not a strop between them. Take notes, lads.
9) You famously lost a huge amount of weight on a brutal diet, did that change how you perform or just how long your trousers last.
It's odd the loss of mass seemed to change the perceived stage authority. I could no longer attempt Orson Wells. My voice changed. I had to learn to hold the stage in different ways. What mostly happened is I became more the same off stage as on. I'm more Penn now, and I'm ready to get all Pop.
10) You have written books, hosted shows and done podcasts, what is the one medium you still feel you have not cracked properly?
Macramé The accent scares me.
The one thing the man cannot conquer is a French knot. Who'd have thought it.
11) You have been one of the loudest atheist voices in entertainment, do you think the world has actually become more rational or just louder about nonsense?
Numbers tell us that Atheism is the fastest growing "religion" (it's a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby) in the USA. But while that is happening the fantasy side is getting more desperate, cruel, and willing to cheat. It now seems like the Atheists are turning the other cheek and loving our neighbors. The end cannot ever justify the means. There are no ends, only means. And Atheists know that.
12) The God Delusion made atheism mainstream pub chat and you have been mentioned around that conversation a lot, did it feel like a turning point or did it oversimplify things?
I love Richard and he's a hero. I've done several events with him, and he astonishes me. The definition of "intellectual" that I favor is "Someone who can change their minds because of information. I think a lot of people think and think well, and Dawkins can get through to them. But, please let's not forget Hitch (Christopher Hitchens), he was the best of us. I miss him every day. It seems to me that the arguments these heroes made (can we throw in Stephen Fry? — where are the Americans?) caused a lot of people to think. Having said all that, it's not anyone, it's everyone. Science has made some good points and it works. The desperate backlash makes me cry, but deep changes like this don't come easy.
"Hitch was the best of us. I miss him every day."
13) There is a lot of talk right now about this being the year of the resurrection in religious circles, people genuinely believing something biblical is about to happen, what do you make of that kind of thinking? Is magic more likely to happen for real?
I haven't seen any of this talk based on any evidence. I think some of these people may think nothing less than a miracle can stop the truth from winning. And they are right. The times they are a-changing (I have to quote the Bard of Minnesota in every interview).
The Bard of Minnesota being one Robert Allen Zimmerman, otherwise known to your old man as Bob Dylan.
14) You used to lean libertarian but have stepped back from labels, what do you make of Donald Trump and his current mix of politics and religion, especially the almost messianic tone around him?
I've known Trump since he was the laughing stock of NYC and watched him ruin Atlantic City. I've done shows with him (he couldn't fire me, because he had no successful place to hire me). I said when he first ran, "No matter how bad you think he is, he's worse." And I was right. The internet and other media helped him use hate and racism (the same thing) to unite stupid people. But, you know, what MLKjr said was right, and love will win. Please don't let it take much longer.
I also said his hair looked like cotton candy made of piss. It's the truest thing I've ever said about anything. We have seen wannabe dictators before and they've always done damage and always had horrible taste.
"His hair looked like cotton candy made of piss. It's the truest thing I've ever said about anything."
"No matter how bad you think he is, he's worse. And I was right."
15) You have built a career on saying exactly what you think, do you reckon free speech is genuinely under threat now or are people just finally being held accountable for what they say.
One of my closest and oldest friends (along with Piff, but Piff is younger) is Bob Corn-Revere. Bob is about as heavy a First Amendment cat as you can find. You know, he's argues in front of the Supreme Court, you know like more than once. He thinks about this exact question most of the hours in the day. He was over my house yesterday and he talked to me about this for 5 hours (throwing in a few funny and/or sex stories). He wasn't able to give me a clear answer to this. When he does, I'll let you know, maybe after a Piff & Pop's Magic Shoppe show.
Five hours, sex stories on the side, and still no clean answer. Which is, in itself, the most honest answer anyone in showbusiness has given on the topic in years.
See Penn live in Piff & Pop's Magic Shoppe, touring the UK this September. Tickets: https://piffthemagicdragon.com/
