THERE are times in the programming of Milton Keynes Theatre when there's a break from the usual diet of top class plays and musicals and the chief exec Elizabeth Adlington throws in an oddity.

It's impossible to classify the likes of Slava's Snow Show or Circus Oz. They're neither fish nor fowl.

Joining the list of quirky performances must be Traces which popped up at the venue for just three nights this week.

It featured five scruffy student-types who go under the name of Les 7 doigts de la main and who turned out to be incredibly talented acrobats, plus a side-order of skateboards, a couple of vertical poles, a basketball and a home-made piano that looked like it had been knocked together from packing crates.

If there can be such a thing as street circus then this was it. It was the sort of thing that goes down a storm on campus, at alternative venues and fringe festivals but was it right for a large, very commercial theatre? The jury is still out.

The backing music was sensational, a mix of hip/hop, grunge and garage, the dancing avant garde and the performance generally a bit hit-or-miss.

There was supposed to be a back story involving the impending destruction of the earth by a nuclear bomb but no-one really grasped the concept. We were too busy watching the French Canadians leap, spin through the air, vault and amaze through a series of loosely connected routines.

There were moments when your heart was in your mouth and other times when you wondered what the hell it was all about but it certainly made you think.

The group was totally reliant on the expertise of their fellow performers, often launching themselves through the air with the expectation that someone would catch them – and they always did.

Traces had bursts of high energy and lulls when you wished they'd got a decent choreographer in but it was refreshing to see young talent being given such a high profile showcase.

The highlights were watching Antoine Carabinier-Lepine rotate at speed in the Cyr Wheel which looked like a giant hoola-hoop, and Philip Rosenberg's elegant and beautifully executed routines involving hand-balancing and somersaults. He had the finesse and poise of a dancer.

The entire squad scrambling and leaping up and off the vertical Chinese Poles was mesmerising. Would they slip as they plunged vertically headlong down the pole to the floor? It was heart-stopping.

The finale, while impressive, involved the four men and a woman somersaulting through a series of vertical Chinese hoops. The audience were a little taken aback when the show suddenly ended – not quite on a high but certainly pretty close.