Slava’s Snow Show is probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Combining traditional European clowning with spectacular effects, and ending with a snowstorm that turns the audience into giggling children, it’s a joyful, moving production like no other.

Seen in more than 30 countries, the show is the brainchild of Russian master clown Slava Polunin.

Growing up in the village of Orel 56 years ago, toys were scarce and Slava created his own entertainment, making up stories and playing in the woods where he built tree houses and put on shows for friends. When he was packed off to study engineering in Leningrad, he joined a mime troupe instead.

Today, Slava lives and works in Paris in a colourful house called the Moulin Jaune, where a network of microphones and hidden speakers are linked to a control desk.

If Slava and his team want to listen to the rushing of water over the weir in one of the rooms, they flick a switch and it’s there. If they want to listen to the rustle of trees, that’s possible too. The state-of-the-art performance space is a vast, playful environment where workshops, festivals and rehearsals take place.

He came to France after he and his wife Elena searched for a home close to water, with land, trees and hills.

How does he describe his work? “My main objective is to break down borders and restrictions,” he says. “A clown is like a child – we have immediacy and freedom, as children do. It is impossible for a child to sit still for more than five minutes; like clowns, they demand to be the centre of attention. Think of five children – or clowns – in the middle of a room? Impossible! But, like children, we want to be loved.”

Slave is well-loved, not least by the performers who come to learn from him from countries around the world.

“I never say ‘do this or do that’. I look at what they have to offer and what they do, and I suggest maybe they could develop that little bit there, or that fragment here,” he says.

“They go away and work on it and the fragment becomes something more polished. Rehearsals and classes are forbidden here – everything happens organically.”

Slava has around 60 people around the world that he calls on to join him when he puts a show together. When he held auditions in Russia, 1,000 would-be performers turned up. He selected 20 to join him on a river voyage to hone their skills, then chose two to be his clowns.

His aim is to “get the audience to open up and to be more creative within themselves. I know from experience that what makes them hysterical in Britain will get a completely different reaction in Tokyo. They see different interpretations of what I do.”

He has an extensive library of DVDs of great comics, mimes and clowns, many from silent films. His heroes include Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. “Silent film transcends boundaries,” he says.

He says about 30 per cent of his shows are improvised. “Someone will come on stage and they won’t enter at the right place, maybe somewhere else. And that will be a spontaneous decision, you’ve then got to work out how to react, how to turn it into something fresh and new,” he says.

“We’ve always got a mound of props offstage. Maybe we’ll just grab one, return to the stage with it and use it as part of the entertainment. We all work instinctively.”

For Slava, the most rewarding aspect of his job is making people laugh.

“Last time I was in the UK, I played in Glasgow for ten weeks and met a consultant who told me he’d been to see the show, and how much he’d enjoyed it.

“He dealt with people who suffered from depression and said ‘In the last few weeks I’ve not been writing prescriptions for tablets, I’ve been telling them go see Slava.”

l Slava’s Snow Show runs at the Alhambra from October 23 - 27. For tickets ring (01274) 432000.