Sunday Times January 27 2002

Mime festival: Clown jewels

Michael Wright on the strange circus tricks and simple pleasures of a mime extravaganza

'At school, I was one of the lucky few who could wiggle my ears. Not only that, but I could touch my nose with my tongue. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it mattered then. One boy knew how to put things into his mouth and pull them out through his nose. Small tricks, but greeted with a sense of awe. As children, we are all circus performers.

And then we grow up, and it takes a lot to prise open a lunette in the gloomy adult consciousness and to allow a little of that forgotten light to steal back in. Three cheers, then, for the London International Mime Festival. I had almost forgotten what strange tricks the human body can play, and the laughter — and wonder — its transformations can generate. Take the French group Compagnie 111, an acrobatic trio of “sonic jugglers”, creating complex cross-rhythms by bouncing white rubber balls — plock, plock, plockety, plock — off a series of coloured wooden boxes on the bare stage.

Again, this doesn’t sound like much. Think of it as Stomp with balls, or Mondrian on acid. The style is minimalist and the mood is one of silent experimentation. One of the trio will fling his ball into an amplified crate and watch it bounce up out of it — 10, 20, 50 times — apparently possessed of a life of its own. I don’t know how they do this, any more than I know how the female member of the trio manages to hang upside down inside the largest of the boxes, supported only by the palms of her hands pressed against its sides. But I do know it all makes the audience sit on the edge of their seats, giggling with a mixture of amazement and delight, like a bunch of toddlers witnessing the clacking of a Newton’s cradle for the first time. And the performers share this sense of wonder. We know, of course, that every throw and bounce has been practised ad nauseam. And that is the bittersweet gift the circus performer bestows upon his audience: I have practised this, effortfully, a million times, so you may watch me do it, effortlessly, once.'

 

'Hats off to the London International Mime Festival. January is prime time for mime. Utter the latter word and some poor sods bolt...they are simply unaware of how much LIMF, a quarter-century old, has expanded the territory. Nowadays mime is so much more than fluttery gestures and sticky whimsy. It's visual theatre, music, clowning, puppetry or circus new and old, running an emotional gamut from effervescently light to grimly tragic.'
Donald Hutera, TIME OUT MAGAZINE

'It is a tribute to the enduring appeal of mime - sometimes regarded as the Cinderella of the performing arts - that LIMF is coming up for its 24th anniversary. From 12-27 January, seven London venues, plus two out of town, will be playing host to some of the most inventive, wacky and visually stimulating performers in the world. The shop window element of the festival, whereby producers and promoters come along to check out the talent on offer, belies the huge popular following of the festival, which has grown steadily in reputation, if not in size, over the past two and a half decades. '
Nick Smurthwaite THE STAGE

'LIMF has built up a sturdy reputation for cherry-picking the best visual theatre from around the world. The performers at LIMF are dedicated not just to the silent arts but to making theatre magical by any means necessary'.
Samantha Ellis, WHAT'S ON