YELLOWKNIFE - "Master of the impossible" must be a tough title to carry around.

People always challenging you to turn lead into gold, levitate, pick lotto numbers, do long division or some other ridiculous thing.

Tomas Kubinek, right, defies gravity with the help of a member of the audience during his show at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre last weekend. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

"Certified lunatic" is a bit easier, I guess. Crazy just comes naturally to some.

Real-life troubles aside, Tomas Kubinek proved that he deserved both self-adorned titles in an off-the-wall series of performances last weekend at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre.

Returning after his stint as emcee for Folk on the Rocks last summer, Kubinek stunned audiences with a mix of sleight of hand, music, acrobatics, storytelling and a heavy dose of pure silliness.

Brilliantly-paced and expertly-nuanced, Kubinek's performance offered a little something for everyone in the audience, whether they were looking for comedy, magic, or a guy who can do a slow-motion backwards somersault with a full wine glass balanced on his head.

Seriously. It has to be seen to be believed.

From start to finish, the show pieced itself into a conceptual whole, as "Professor Kubinek" lectured by candlelight on the finer points of his personal history, his various inventions (such as two-shoed prosthetics he attached to each knee) and the fine art of audience participation.

"I will not follow blindly," he had the audience repeat at length, raising their collective right hands. "As one voice, we average out our intelligence."

The show also demonstrated his flair for improv, working in jokes about the "God-forsaken wasteland" we live in, interacting with the audience, and even bringing one helpful member onto the stage.

Using his newfound prop, Kubinek told jokes, did some physical comedy and used the brave volunteer as a platform for some gravity-defying acrobatic balancing.As a last bit of the-joke-is-on-the-audience fun, Kubinek played a ukulele rendition of Irving Berlin's The Song is Ended (But the Melody Lingers on), which, suitably, refused to end.

But end it did. And with a blown-out candle, it was over, except for the wild applause, of course.