Frank Olivier's magic is entirely out in the open and is about the most amazing 40 minutes you will ever see - and still not believe.

Frank Olivier is a juggler the way Laurence Olivier is an actor, for he is also a comedian, unicyclist and altogether startling performer.

Even if you hate magic, new or old wave, and especially if you hate jugglers, you must see Olivier, a local kid (son of the '60s folk singer Barry Olivier) who began in the streets and was last here in "Sugar Babies."

Olivier must be the best juggler in the world - he's certainly the funniest. You shake your hear in wonder, for what he's doing right there in front of you - nothing up his sleeve except nerves and laughs.

Next to him, mere magic seems a series of facile stunts and novelty- shop gimicks.

Frank Olivier is a show of his own, He keeps topping himself at the same time he's mocking himself. It's all a beautiful balancing act, juggling both comedy and duckpins, the timing of his jokes as split second as his juggling.

He's a brilliant baggy-tux juggler, the Bill Irwin of juggling. He looks all wrong for what he does - like the village idiot, a gangly gawking, giggling bundle of nerves who looks like he can't chew gum and walk at the same time.

It's not what he juggles (pins, balls oranges, machetes, axes) but the variations and hilarious patter while hurling stuff about. When he "drops" something, it's artfully done, with ingenious comic saves.

Olivier works on the brink of disaster, a clown anda daredevil, making every triumph look like his first. One small boy across the aisle was in a convulsive state, unable to decide whether to guffaw or gasp and I was no better. Olivier makes us all 10 again.

Just when you're astonished by his sleight-of-hand, he brings on a six-foot unicycle, the mere mounting of which is good for 15 jokes.

Once seated, he teeters, he lurches, he cheers himself on, and then asks a man for a light for his torches, which he proceeds to juggle overhead, crosshand and underleg, meanwhile cracking you up.

The man is clearly and wonderfully crazy, an endlessly inventive performer who is blessed not only with astonishing physical dexterity but, better still, with the inner magic of personality, wit and charm.