@ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 12 Mar 2016

As the title alludes, this show is quite berserk. Direct from five sold-out seasons in London’s Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, Cirque Berserk boasts of being “Britain’s favourite contemporary thrill circus.”

Combining contemporary circus skills with death defying tricks, Cirque Berserk includes over thirty jugglers, acrobats, aerialists, dancers, drummers, stunt men and Tweedy, a master of physical comedy.

Cirque Berserk is loud, explosive and fast paced, showcasing a range of extremely talented artists, all skilled in their own crafts. Combining centuries-old skills and traditions of the touring circus troupe with a contemporary approach to staging, adapted for a theatre audience rather than a big top, the show lacks a certain flow with little cohesion between each act. Rather, it is a vehicle for a diverse range of performers from across the globe including Kenya, Cuba, Mongolia, Brazil, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France and the UK.

There are some notable stars including Germaine Delbosq, a most skilled footjuggler; the Timbuktu Tumblers, who present a pyramid of the human form with notable ease, and limbo with fire-lit limbo poles, making it look too easy; the Tropicana Troupe from Cuba who catapult themselves into the air with a human weighted springboard performing their flic-flacs and somersaults and handbalances; Kremena, who perform their skills with a grace and finish any Olympian would be proud of.

Matti and Ramona from Finland, costumed like a Matthew Bourne male swan and a female counterpart, perform a series of balancing tricks and contortions, with Ramona, the female, often supporting her partner in physics-defying feats, with beauty and grace.

The acts that don’t quite cut the mustard are the Berserk dancers, whose performance seems more a weaving of different acts than providing any meaningful presence; the aerial artists, whose silk work just doesn’t have the impact or sense of danger that others have; and the Czech knife thrower, Toni. Hurling knifes and axes at his wife was plain sinister and disturbing, and out of place in the modern world.

Juxtaposed among all these modern circus acts is Alan Digweed, aka Tweedy, the king of old-fashioned clowning, but without the scary nose, sad face and white make-up. Think Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Tweedy displays the genius of these old comic performers, managing to gain the trust of the audience and a laugh from good old slapstick, and is used loosely to weave the various performers together.

The highlight of the show was the Lucius Team presenting their “Globe of Terror”. It’s a petrol-fuelled hair-raiser with four motorbike riders roaring around a fairly small enclosed globe simultaneously, live on stage. It’s loud, and for all petrol-heads, utterly thrilling.

A feast for the eyes and the senses, there’s no denying the individual talents of all these performers and the years of training involved, resulting in some solid circus entertainment which kids will love. It didn’t completely come together as a circus show in a theatrical setting, though. Maybe it was the smell of sawdust and the big top that was missing.