WuShu need kicking into shape

Circus at the South Bank has gone off, and there's no point pretending otherwise. Only a couple of years ago the Queen Elizabeth Hall hosted the magical James Thierree, and a couple before that the rumbustious Circus Baobab, both fresh, ingenious, troupes whose shows had you ooh-ing and aah-ing at every spin and thill.

Even Circus Oz, the hearty troupe from Down Under who have slightly worn their own joke thin, looked in rude good form at the QEH in the summer.

But last Christmas came the dire Moscow State Circus, and this year is the almost-as-bad Chinese State Circus. Actually, the Chinese visitors are better than the Ruskies, but that's not saying much.

The problem is less the individual acts, one or two of which were pretty good, as the overall lack of them. The show, which includes turns from Shaolin WuShu Warriors and the Peking Opera, feels thin, with too much voice-over and not enough tumbling and juggling.

In fact, if you discount the core of nine acrobats, you don't have much of a circus, at least not one that's very good. The strong man was not that strong, the knife thrower obviously wasn't throwing the knives; while the double high-wire pair left you thinking they should seek other employment.

Indeed, halfway through the act, as one poor girl lost her footing for the umpteenth time, you began to suspect that this Chinese State Circus must be put together by the capitalist infidel to undermine the glory of the Chinese state.

Other less-than-convincing acts include the moth-eaten Chinese Lion Dance, ineffectual "bow bending" from the strongman, a mask of six or seven faces rather than the promised 100, and a pleasing-to-look at but technically so-so contortionist.

If all that weren't bad enough, the Shaolin WuShu Warriors were, by Shaolin standards, not that special, and the performers from the Chinese Opera were colourful but obviously minor actors from the corps, although I'm beginning to doubt they were even that.

Having thoroughly put the boot in, it has to be said that the circus's nine acrobats were able and committed, with a ring-ding hoop diving routine and good humoured juggling with substantial pottery jars.

Also excellent was the slack-wire walker, an exuberant young man whose insouciant shoulder stand on a unicycle on the wire was genuinely eye-popping, while his unsupported headstand seemed to defy all Newton's laws.