EVERY time the lights dim in a theatre auditorium, there is a sense of anticipation, a willingness to suspend disbelief and be amazed. Rarely though does a show create such a sense of childlike wonder in everyone in the audience, young and old alike, as Slava's Snow Show.

Hands up. It wasn't the first time I'd seen Slava's Snow Show … but I really hope it's not the last because this is a show that delivers a major buzz, and the most extraordinary spectacle I've ever seen in a theatre.

Where contemporary circus intrigues and stuns with seemingly impossible physical feats and drama often packs an emotional punch that lingers, Slava does something astonishingly different by inducing a sense of wonder and joy that brings an involuntary grin and spontaneous whoops of delight.

For anyone whose inner child is still intact, the spectacle that unfurls on the stage - and in the auditorium - will leave you laughing out loud and open-mouthed with wonder.

We've become used to ever more elaborate special effects on screens big and small, but there is no substitute for live spectacle – offering the chance to get on your feet cheering the brilliance of Slava and his troupe of weirdly wonderful clowns as snow falls inside the auditorium.

If clowns in the snow doesn't sound like your kind of thing, think again - this is mime and clowning stripped to its bare essentials, where a turn of the head, a shrug of the shoulders, a raising of the eyebrow convey powerful emotions in a series of brilliantly judged sketches, none more moving than when a coat and hat are poignantly brought to life, or funnier than Slava faced with a bottle precariously and tantalisingly out of reach.

The finale is unlike anything I've ever seen in a theatre - spectacular is an over-used word, but the only one to use to describe Slava's Snow Show - beautiful to look at, exciting to watch, and seven years on, possibly more tingle-inducing than the first time. Magical and unmissable it's little wonder Slava has been touring for the past two decades. Long may he continue.

Slava's Snow Show runs at the Theatre Royal in Bath until Saturday, then visits Edinburgh and Salford before a London season at Southbank Centre over Christmas. To book, call the box office on 01225 448844 or visit theatreroyal.org.uk