GASPS of delight and roars of laughter filled the air around Bicester as the circus rolled-up for another week of wackiness.

Families flooded into the circus tent and looked on at the impressive arena –home to acts from one of the UK's oldest traditional shows, the Ginnett Circus.

They included clowning around from Gerry the Mexican clown and gymnast Lisandra from Cuba who made an impressively flexible appearance to wow the audience with her contortion act.

She said: "The shows in Bicester have been really quite good. There have been lots of people and when we finished our first show one parent left us a message which said 'thank you so much, we all had a lovely time and even the baby was clapping along'.

"It has been great, with lots of cheering, as we have quite a lot of comedy in the show this year – even though my contortion act is quite serious the audience still reacted well which was nice."

One highlight from the show which had the crowd smiling, according to Lisandra was a comedy sketch which saw acts trying to fix a light bulb in a broken lamppost. In typical slapstick fashion, it all goes terribly wrong.

Gymnast Lisandra added: "Everybody loved the act and were in fits of laughter.

"There was a second part in which a member of the audience is brought up to help the performer as his assistant, which includes making them dance. The children loved that part especially."

The whole show, which returns to the Rugby Club field in Oxford Road, Bicester, annually for a week of shows, also included Vitzo from Hungary, who showed off her glass balancing skills; Maria from Russia, who hula-hooped her way to the audience's hearts; and Vader the Wonder Dog, who appears alongside Ringmaster Patrick as his sidekick for the night.

The show will next move on the Kidlington for shows from Wednesday to Sunday.

For more details or for tickets see circusginnett.com