A number of complex creations of metal, wood, wire, and paper litter the dimly lit stage; an electric guitar is strummed by a plectrum wired to a glass bowl swinging on the end of a long string; various tables, a fish tank, screens, pulleys, trolleys, and ropes lie inert, like the abandoned, half-realised experiments of […]

Torn invites the viewer into a private place. A place where madness is close, but will never be called such because this kind of madness is, perhaps, common to us all, and remains contained in moments of loneliness. There is no witness to call us mad. Though here, in Francisca Morton’s intimate exposé of one […]

It’s a minimalist scene on entering: an empty stage, with a large projection screen at the back and projector centre stage. To the left a sound desk, anglepoise lamp, and a couple of guitars. Opposite, on the far right of the stage, is the animation table, a camera on a rostrum, paper and art materials […]

The great joy of the Mime Festival is that whilst a stripped back, poetic meditation on the human condition such as Yoann Bourgeois’s He Who Falls is playing in one venue, across town in another space a dense and anarchic circus show such as Svalbard’s All Genius All Idiot is also playing. And what a contrast these […]

Making his British debut, young circus director Yoann  Bourgeois’s He Who Falls (Celui qui tombe) is as intelligent, inquisitive and, most importantly, deftly-pitched a performance as you’ll find in any British theatre this year. These are the kind of performances that the London International Mime Festival is for, and, in the absence of a French level of […]