THE HAGUE, The Netherlands - At 80, the world's oldest clown has given up tightrope walking but Oleg Popov, the most famous Soviet-era jester, still tours half of the year and has no plans to hang up his trademark red nose.

"The Sun Clown", as he is also known, never fails to enthral young and old with his oddball character based on a figure from Russian folklore - one who appears stupid but really isn't.

"I love to make people laugh, also in private," the Russian told AFP on a recent tour in The Hague, laughter sparkling in his lively blue eyes.

"I am very happy, if I could live my life over I would become a clown all over again."

As the drums rolled under the traveling big top of the Great Russian State Circus, the ringmaster heralds "the one, the only, the unique Oleg Popov!"

To loud applause, a small man with a shock of straw-coloured hair under a black-and-white chequered cap shuffles into the ring - just as he has done for six decades.

Alone in the spotlight, Popov - who in 1981 won the Golden Clown award, the "Oscar" of the circus world - chants softly in Russian, clutching an old umbrella handle sprouting a bunch of multicolored balloons.

Accompanied by a circus orchestra, Popov and his 49-year-old German wife Gabriela also juggle and do magic tricks - no vocabulary required as they communicate with their audience in the universal language of laughter.

"The work of a clown is interesting because it is art, and art is like an endless ocean," the octogenarian told AFP between shows, taking a break in his circus trailer filled with costumes, balloons and old-fashioned suitcases.

"What Charlie Chaplin was for the movies, Oleg Popov is for the circus," states a tribute to Popov on the Great Russian State Circus website, referring to one of the clown's own idols.

Born Oleg Konstantinovich Popov into a poor family in a small town near Moscow, he joined the Russian State Circus school in Moscow at the age of 14, spending 10-hour days learning juggling, tightrope walking, trapeze work and acrobatics.

At 19, the clown, whose clockmaker father disappeared under the Stalin regime, was given a full-time job at the government-run Russian State Circus. His big break came in 1954, when he stepped in for the head clown who had broken his arm.

Popov took over as head clown two years later, the same year he left Russian soil for the first time on a tour of western Europe. It was the first-ever foreign tour by a Soviet circus, arranged by the Kremlin to bolster its image abroad.

Popov has since performed all around the world, including France, Australia, the United States, Japan, Israel and Cuba.

Popov tours each year for six months, giving more than 200 performances mainly in Germany but also in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 02/02/2011 page4)