EVERYONE knows ballet dancers are petite little things, with limbs which look as if they might snap in a slightly over-enthusiastic gust of wind.

Which is why these dancers - from the homeland of ballet, Russia, no less - come as a bit of a surprise.

Each of the 16 ballerinas weigh in at at least 15 stone - more than some of the Worcester Warriors.

Which means the audience would be forgiven for worrying about the strain on Worcester's Swan Theatre's well trodden boards as these ladies from the Urals pirouette across them.

To reiterate: this is not ballet as you know it.

But then again, it’s not meant to be.

Alexej Ignatow, the Big Ballet UK’s tour producer, explained this is, at its heart, a comedy - although he was keen to stress the audience is not laughing at his dancers, but with them.

“It is a comedy,” said Ignatow. “The first half is a parody of Swan Lake, with a bunch of chickens who see a beautiful swan dancing and decide they want to be that swan. Chickens cannot be swans.

“But it’s not just about laughing. These girls are there to encourage other women of similar size to try out different things, to show them they do not need to be hiding away.

“There should be no limit to what they can do.

“Eugene Panfilov - who created the Big Ballet - set out to try to prove to the world that it is possible to be bigger and dance.”

These women are, after all, the little girls who were told by their ballet teachers at the age of six that they were never going to make it to the Bolshoi, simply because of their size.

“This is a chance for them to live their dreams,” said Ignatow.

But it is fair to say these women face rather different challenges than those who dance at the New York City Ballet.

One appears to be keeping their weight up - the minimum was dropped from 17 stone to 15 earlier this year after healthy eating meant there weren’t as many auditionees as usual, not to mention the time they had to leave behind their principle dancer after she lost a few pounds...

The other, certainly, is the technicalities of ballet itself: it is not easy balancing all your weight on your toes at the best of times.

But Ignatow still believes their achievements mirror those of the professionals.

“The professional dancers respect what these ladies can do,” he said. “One could watch the show and say, it’s nothing special - but if you are bigger, everything becomes 10 times more difficult.

“There are different limits to what they can do.”

- For tickets - priced at £18.50 - to see the Big Ballet on Tuesday, March 29, at 7.30pm visit worcesterlive.co.uk