Au Revoir Parapluie is a marvellous, surrealistic show, but although an umbrella - well, actually a parasol - does appear, the title gives no hint at the cornucopia of wonderful scenes that flow with extraordinary imagination and smoothness through this uninterrupted hour-and-a-half of acrobatic dance-theatre and mime.

Thiérrée is the grandson of Charles Chaplin - his mother Victoria is the great man's daughter. She and her husband Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée ran a circus based in Burgundy, and so James was immersed in acrobatics and theatre from the moment he was born. Training is one thing, genius is another, but James has inherited a lot of it through his impeccable theatrical pedigree. Two years ago, his sister Aurelia appeared in her solo show at the Oxford Playhouse, and I wrote then that this was one of the most wonderful shows I have seen. I can now repeat that about her brother's.

There are five artists, four trained in circus skills and dance, and Maria Sendow, a singer-actor whose compelling voice forms part of the score against which the speedily unfolding scenes are performed. Thiérrée opens the show miming to some high-pitched singing and wearing an expression of delighted surprise at the extraordinary sounds he is 'producing'. Later, he makes a whole comedy routine out putting on, removing and getting tangled up in his jacket.

His acrobatic skills are on show throughout, most impressively in his involvement with a rocking chair (pictured).

Throughout the programme, a bunch of thick white ropes hangs from the rafters, from which hands and feet mysteriously appear, while, at one point, the heads of these unseen bodies are carted off. Aerial artist Satchie Noro floats easily high above us, or dances like a demented Isadora Duncan. We meet a man-eating, singing giant mollusc made of rope; a giraffe-like creature, its long legs made of white trees, stomps across the stage; there is a long sequence of intricate juggling with rice plants, and a finale in which the whole cast hang off bits of a device like an antique fireman's ladder as it circles the stage.

The richness of Thiérrée's imagination is astonishing. Perhaps most impressive of all is the tiny figure of Kaori Ito, hurtling here and there, climbing, flying, dancing, contorting herself into impossible poses on one leg and holding them without a wobble. This woman is rubber with the strength of steel - part Puck, part Gollum on speed, quite remarkable, as is the whole production.

James Thiérrée continues at Sadlers Wells (tel. 0844 412 4300) tonight and tomorrow.