TEETERING on a thin wire with only a Venezuelan soap star for support, I begin to realise how incredibly difficult tightrope walking actually is.

Vaguif Khamdoulaev, a tightrope walker with the Moscow State Circus and star of the Venezuelan equivalent of Coronation Street, puts my few tentative steps to shame by sprinting and backflipping his way across a wire.

It seems bizarre that Vaguif should take up this discipline given that on the day he was born, his father Goussien fell 25ft from his wire, breaking both arms and three ribs.

But 29 years on, both father and son are performing on the highest indoor highwire in the world with the Moscow State Circus, currently parked on Worcester's Pitchcroft Racecourse.

Shamed by my uselessness on the tightrope, I find myself juggling perched on a board rolling on a metal cylinder, and trying in vain not to look like a fool in front of experts Oxana and Veronika Bougrova.

These sisters are the only female duo in the world to do the rola-rola, a mind-boggling display of balance.

Trying my hand with the Roubtsov Acrobats, I am strangely proud when I pull off a hopping-skipping routine, but my acrobat friends don't seem quite so impressed as they backflip between the jump ropes.

And the show doesn't end there. The line-up includes a foot juggling family, a seven strong trapeze troupe, contortionists and clowns.

The Moscow State Circus, which opened yesterday, has shows at 5pm and 8pm until Friday, and 2pm and 5pm on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18.

For tickets, call 07030 150150.