From the moment Tomas Kubinek crept silently on to a darkened stage, white night-shirt billowing, hair flowing from beneath a black cap, his way lit by flickering candles cradled in his hands, it was evident that we were in the presence of a superior -- if decidedly nutty -- talent.

Once again, Paula Maguire has dipped into the cream of Canada's entertainers for her three month-long Kidfest, a series of shows geared to Bermuda's children.

Kubinek, who, as a child, fled with his family when the Soviets invaded his native Czechoslovakia, has been based in Canada ever since, but his show has a universal appeal. This is partly because he uses, quite brilliantly, the art of mime, and essentially visual acts such as magic, juggling and acrobatics.

Add to this the fact that he is a natural storyteller who establishes an immediate rapport with the audiences, whether young or old, and you have the makings of a star performer.

Like all great clowns, he employs an element of pathos: he is the clumsy , but essentially gentle oaf who drops things and falls over, the magician whose tricks don't work (at any rate, not the first time around, which gave the children, united in delighted derision, a noisy opportunity to egg him on for another go).

He takes the commonplace, such as cleaning his teeth, and transports it into the realm of the ridiculous, as more and more brushes appear, until he is frantically trying to balance six in his mouth at once. From a large suitcase, he fished out a variety of props, including a wicked set of juggling knives ("move back, children!'').

With his hair on end ("my antennae'', he explained), singing songs and strumming a ukele, his face contorted into a pageant of varying emotions, this was entertainment of the most virtuosic variety.

"Don't turn into an angry mob,'' he beseeched his young audience, as he cheated like mad with a card trick, but winning admiring `oohs' and `ahs' as a long-forgotten selected card suddenly turned up in a half-eaten banana, or a red scarf mysteriously floated out of a child's shoe.

The performance ended with his spectacular one-wheeled bicycle act, a considerable feat of balancing which, in flying goggles, helmet and a giant pair of wings, he brought off with theatrical aplomb. And, since no one in the audience flung bouquets at his feet, he threw them at himself.

This was an hour of enchanting entertainment by an artist whose fame seems likely only to increase. It was quite a coup, one imagines, to have acquired him for this children's festival. Paula Maguire's Kidfest has set standards of entertainment which compare very favourably with the main annual Bermuda Festival.

PATRICIA CALNAN ON YOUR BIKE MATE! -- Canadian entertainer, Tomas Kubinek, pictured in the grounds of Elbow Beach Hotel.