SWING those hips! These dancers of Bury's samba band Zambura are pictured leading the way in the town's Streets Ahead Festival.

Sunshine flooded Bury town centre as thousands of revellers enjoyed a free day's colourful entertainment on Monday (May 1).

A wide variety of acts, local, national and international, strutted their stuff: jugglers and actors, musicians and comedians, and the usual assortment of strangely-garbed oddities!

Perhaps the most entertaining came from Avanti Display, a Manchester theatre group with "Crash!", which somehow brought together a tale of road crashes and a very odd nightclub, a piano balanced precariously on top of a van. Yet again, it featured the old audience participation trick, half of whom seemed scared witless, despite the free champagne. But their portrayal of that surreal cliche, fish on a motorbike, was the funniest thing seen all day. Desperate Men, meanwhile, could give you nightmares with their marvellously made-up Apocalyptic Horsemen. It was hard to decide which was better: their costumes, or a Python-esque song about diseases.

Another star turn were the comic duo Hoopal, whose zany antics and street comedy went down well, especially when poking fun at foreigners and local folk unlucky to possess either a weird Biblical name or an intrusive mobile phone. And three cheers to youngster Andrew in his England shirt for bring a good sport.

Fans of Morris Men, stilt-walkers and stunts with raw eggs found three things to enjoy with the Grand Theatre of Lemmings.

And for a touch of social realism, there was Leandre & Claire, a Spanish comedy duo with a show about the triumph of love among the homeless. Their charming attempts to erect a house with no walls, however, nearly came to grief at the hands of some truculent sticky-backed plastic.