THIS is my favourite part of the summer. Seriously, I look forward to it weeks in advance, with the kind of excitement usually reserved for birthdays, Christmases and Stroud Town Council meetings. Giffords are back.

Everything about the place is designed to make you feel about six again - the brightly-painted wagons, the twee little big top, the front of house girls in their bright blue and gold jackets.

The regression is complete before you even step inside.

Then, when you're nicely set up for it, there's the show itself - which is simply magical.

From the first moment, when the band starts up, the dancers step and twirl and a little dog rides in on a motorbike, the audience watches spellbound as Nell Gifford unwraps a filigreed, velvet-lined chocolate box of little delights before their very eyes.

This year's theme, The Cockerel, is skillfully woven into the show, thanks in no small part to the muscular, bohemian presence of the Russian Cossacks, who manage to perform incredible acrobatics on two horses in a ring barely a dozen feet across.

And the costumes - such costumes! A riot of red, black and gold, they paint the performers in the bright, primary colours of childhood fairytales.

In a show with so many highlights, its hard to pick just one or two. But top-class clown Tweedy is in a league of his own and the Russian bar act Trio Slipchenko are simply incredible.

Put simply, Giffords is the most fun you can have in a tent. So what are you waiting for, dummy? Go! Go now!