The audience watching the new show, A Cure by Laughter, at the Old Moscow Circus already suspects what "doctor" from outer space is going to pop out of that tiny spaceship landing in the single ring, and their delight is tangible. Sure enough, what emerges is no astronaut, considering the oversize checkered cap perched on unruly shocks of blond hair, black velvet jacket, red scarf, clodhopper shoes and, of course, trademark potato nose. After 30 years with the circus, Oleg Popov, 49, is regarded as the king of clowns even beyond Soviet borders. How long did it take to dream up the medical mayhem in his latest laffer? Says Popov: "Six months, plus my entire life."

For a Jew, his is an understandable crusade; for a Muscovite, it is an uncomfortable one. But Dancer Yuri Sherling, 35, seeks a renaissance of Yiddish culture, which, he laments, is "decaying all over the world and has been neglected by many Jews in this country." A graduate of three famed institutes--the Bolshoi Ballet School, the Moscow Conservatory Musical School and the Moscow School of Theatrical Arts--Sherling is director-founder of the two-year-old Jewish Chamber Musical Theater. He has written the music, choreographed the dancing and starred in two hits with his company of 25. One show was an olio of jazzed-up Jewish folk songs and dances. The other, a folk-rock musical called A Black Bridle for a White Mare, got its title from an old Yiddish proverb: "Poverty suits a Jew like a black bridle on a white mare." Sherling has other works in preparation but, he says, finding space and support is becoming difficult. "It's as if the authorities had let a genie out of the bottle and don't know what to do about him now, push him back in or what."

She sings. She dances. She plays the piano, plunks the guitar, pumps the accordion. She recently won raves for two movies, Siberiada and Five Evenings. Now Actress Lyudmila Gurchenko, 44, is an author acclaimed for her autobiography, published in a literary monthly, about growing up in war-torn Kharkov. The muse moved her while she and film friends watched Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. "They kept saying how marvelous the Tatum O'Neal character was. So I said, 'Listen, guys, I was the same type of child, only I grew up with German troops and hunger and death.' They told me to write it all down." The result: My Adult Childhood, a mosaic of young life under Nazi occupation that has brought such a flood of letters it may end up as--what else?--a movie.

Since she is now the country's leading gymnast, the Soviet press has naturally begun to refer to Nelli Kim as "Charming Nelli." When she pauses to chomp watermelon in the midst of an otherwise rigid training regimen, she fits that title, but Nelli and her coaches agree that she can often be much less than charming. The only thing that justifies her moods are the results. In Montreal four years ago, Kim not only won two individual gold medals but scored two all-but-unprecedented perfect tens --one in the floor exercise program and one in her specialty, the vault. In Fort Worth last December she took the all-round women's title. Kim, now training near her home in Minsk, is the odds-on favorite for further honors in the 1980 Olympics. But she is not so sure. Kim will be 23 in July, an aging gymnastic veteran. She also has domestic distractions: foremost among them, Husband and Fellow Gymnast Vladimir Achasov. Says Kim: "I hate to lose, but it's getting more difficult to win."

Sounds rather like a Soviet football team: the Moscow Virtuosos. But what an all-star lineup. These Virtuozy Moskvy are 25 top musicians, organized into a chamber orchestra 18 months ago by Violinist Vladimir Spivakov, 35. World-renowned virtuoso himself, Spivakov alternates between bow and baton to direct his skillful charges with intensity and impishness: "Let's not be bulldozers," he will grin as the tempo speeds up during rehearsal of a Vivaldi passage. The virtuozy were the hit of Moscow's Russian Winter Festival and will play for Olympic audiences this summer. Spivakov would like to bring them to the U.S., but for him Jimmy Carter's cultural embargo hits a sour note.

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