IF IT had not been for Laurel and Hardy and a well-timed traffic jam, the world may never have experienced the considerable talents of Scotland’s most famous clown.

Growing up in Aberdeen in the 70s, Alan Digweed – aka Tweedy – loved watching physical comedy greats like Ollie and Stan and Buster Keaton in action.

It inspired him to abandon his plans to study animation at art school and join the circus instead.

“This was before the internet which is pretty hard to imagine now,” he grins, describing how difficult it was to get careers advice on how to be a clown.

“I got a job at Butlin’s and sent some questionnaires out to a few clowns to get some responses.

“I was lucky enough to get offered a job with Zippo’s, one of the best circuses around.”

He laughs: “Then in my first week the main clown in the act got stuck in traffic. I was on, did quite well and after that they kept me on.”

Since then, Tweedy also appeared as a comic stuntman at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at Disneyland Paris and he starred in a two-year tour of the USA in with the mighty Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Later this month, he will be wowing Glasgow audiences as part of Zippo’s Cirque Berserk.

Look out for his vaudeville-style make-up and bright red tuft of hair – but don’t expect big shoes and a red nose.

“I provide the comedy element but I’m not a clown really,” he says. “I’m more of a comic performer and my inspirations are people like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, so it’s physical comedy that I do, like the way those performers used to do it.”

So why, in a show that includes death-defying motorcycle stunts, high-flying acrobats and a crossbow-firing contortionist do people come out talking about a guy messing around on stage?

“I try and combine things that other acts do successfully but also I think people like it because they can relate to the character in a way,” Tweedy says.

“The show’s full of individual acts that are amazing but they’re a million miles away for people to comprehend trying to do. My act will probably make people see what they would look like if they tried some of the stunts that the other Cirque Berserk performers are doing.”

That makes the part Tweedy has to play sound simple but in fact, the need for meticulous planning, props and audience participation mean it’s a tricky act to master.

“There are a few stunts, routines with ladders and bikes that fall apart,” he grins. “A lot of the show is about thrills and danger and I still have a bit of that but I provide a comic aspect to it as well.

“The other acts are about trying to do their piece and look professional and I’m like an annoying little child, really, stopping them from performing and getting in their way.

“I ask the audience to help me out with a few things in a few of my routines, really as a helping hand so that I can get onto the apparatus, rather than humiliating anyone. I’m the one that looks stupid, not them!”

Cirque Berserk is one of the most diverse, exciting circus theatre shows around. A troupe of more than 30 jugglers, acrobats, aerialists, dancers, musicians and death-defying stuntmen combine to bring the thrills and spills of the Big Top into the theatre.

“It’s a unique show - it is a circus show, but also you get those thrills – like the motorcycles in the Globe of Terror,” says Tweedy.

“The whole experience feels a lot stronger because you’re so much closer to the action than you would be anywhere else.”

Martin Burton, Cirque Berserk founder and producer, explains: “What the Cirque Berserk team have created together is real circus made for theatre.

“It’s put together in a very 21st-century way. The lighting, music and costumes are entirely different from what you’re used to.”

Billed as the world’s most dangerous circus act, the legendary Globe of Terror features four motorcyclists speeding at more than 60mph inside a steel cage.

Brazilian Lucio Zafalon has been riding the Globe of Terror for 28 years while his partner, Ana, stands in the middle of the riders as they whizz around her.

Lucio says: “I’m not from a circus family, I’ve just loved bikes since I was born.

“I started in the Globe of Terror with just one motorbike when I was 15. The adrenaline and control you have is what makes it so good.”

Of course, the Globe is not without high risk.

“I have crushed every bone in my left-hand side over the years; my legs, feet, knee four times,” Lucio says. “It’s never stopped me. You just carry on. You need a love and passion in your life, and bikes are mine.”

Cirque Berserk also features knife-throwing duo Toni and Nikol Novotny, who have been married for five years, after meeting at the circus in their native Czech Republic.

Revered as one of the best and fastest knife-throwers in the world, Toni, who is just 25, has never had a mishap.

“I’m from a circus family and so is Nikol,” he says. “I’ve always been a performer, on stage and in the circus, and because I grew up in that environment, I’ve been knife-throwing since I was very small.”

Throw in a Mongolian archer who makes her dramatic entrance inside a glass bottle and the proceeds to shoot arrows with her feet and a troupe of Kenyan acrobats who limbo under flaming bars set no higher than a couple of fizzy drinks bottles, and you get the idea that Cirque Berserk is possibly the most exciting night at the theatre you’ll have this year….

Cirque Berserk is at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow from January 22 to 24.