Circus thrills

2:32pm Tuesday 23rd October 2007

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CIRCUSES were never like this when I was a child.

Instead of clowns, the Chinese State Circus, currently pitched up on Blackheath Common, had an acrobat in the guise of the Monkey King - a prominent figure in Chinese folklore - and a pair of plate-spinning, cutlery-throwing chefs.

Rather than jugglers, the big top featured three men throwing huge ceramic pots into the air and catching them on the backs of their necks.

All that and I haven't even mentioned the Shaolin Wu Shu fighting monks.

The whole show is at times so extraordinary and so surprising it has the potential to change your view of circuses forever.

Promising to introduce you to the world's oldest civilisation in 90 minutes, as the announcer does at the outset is a little ambitious but the circus does pack a huge variety of performances into its running time.

The martial art practising monks are perhaps most impressive when they put down their weapons to break bricks on one another's heads or lie down on a bed of swords.

A further highlight is The Human Chandelier, a young contortionist who elegantly twists her body into all manner of shapes while balancing candleabras on her hands and feet.

Also very popular, especially with youngsters in the crowd, were the Chinese lions - operated like a pantomime horse, but far more extravagant and colourful - which ride giant balls across the stage in a thousand-year-old tradition known as the Chinese Lion Dance.

Perhaps the only drawbacks are a blink-and-you'll-miss-it knife-throwing act, which is over far too quickly, and a voiceover which is difficult to understand.

Still this was a fantastic spectacle celebrating the Chinese culture's richest traditions.

Blackheath Common. To Oct 28. For tickets, call 0870 155 5585.