Tomas Kubinek

Theatre, Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre Jul 23-24, 7.30pm; Jul 25, 3pm

Also known as the 'Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible', Tomas Kubinek is more than your average modern-day clown. Other than picking on the audience, he also does magic and acrobatics, sings and invents. And the self-proclaimed 'doctor of dramatic diversions and curer of melancholia' is coming our way this weekend as part of this year's International Arts Carnival.

The Czech-born Canadian vaudeville act has performed in major venues such as the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and was described by The New York Times as 'consistently charming'.

But Kubinek doesn't just lark around on stage. Although he can balance a glass of wine on his forehead while performing a backward somersault, his shows also convey a message of love and peace.

'My performance has the usual effects one can expect: mass hypnosis, attempts on my life, marriage proposals,' he once quipped. 'Mainly, I've been told that my work is funny and life-affirming. So people laugh and feel good and that has a ripple effect, and hopefully they don't do bad things to each other.'

Kubinek was born in Prague and says that at the age of three he was smuggled out of the country by his parents to escape the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. After two months in a refugee camp in Austria, his family was granted asylum in Canada and it was in Ontario that the five-year-old Kubinek saw his first circus. He has had a passion for the circus, clowns, theatre and magic ever since, and made his public debut when he was nine. It is his ability to appreciate everything around him that makes his shows refreshing and even profound. When he is asked where he gets his inspiration for his gags, Kubinek simply says: 'Mainly, inspiration comes from constantly rediscovering what a miracle it is that we exist and how beautiful and fragile it all is.'