Mimefest 2009

Mimefest 2009

22 December, 2008
by: John Ellingsworth

Probably the only festival to theatrically combine the two very close disciplines of puppetry and taxidermy, the London International Mime Festival draws near. The line-up this year is looking bitchingly good. There's an intense wordless interpretation of the Oedipus myth with what might be the scariest mime whiteface ever; an exhibition-show of gothically complex mechanical automata by the sculptor-engineer Eduard Bersudsky; L'Ecume de l'Air, a collaboration between a juggler and a double bassist (that according to its publicity will 'engulf' you – gosh!);  and the Grandma Show for 2009 (unlikely to feature nudity or puppet copulation or deployed bucketfuls of real viscera), vaudevillian Tomas Kubinek, which looks like it's going to be consummate old-style Marceau comedy.

The Mimefest's sting though is that while everything sounds engaging and cool in précis, it might well be an unrealised mess or terrible drag on stage. The hit rate's pretty good, but catch five or six performances and there's a good chance you'll see something you hate or can't respond to. If you're only seeing one thing, I think Collectif Petit Travers are a safe bet. I saw their show in the 2008 festival, and it was one of the best pieces of circus I saw all year – not really about obsessive compulsion, but using the symptoms of that condition to drive the characters and engineer simple but very satisfying moments of dramatic release. The company has good skills, and great instincts; I'd recommend them to anyone.

There's also the two companies to have been recognised by the Total Theatre Awards (the undisputed and impossibly prestigious gold standard of dramatic accomplishment): Akhe and Redcape Theatre. Akhe are previous winners for their show White Cabin, and this year are presenting Faust.2360 – an oulipian version of Faust that contains just 2360 spoken words. Redcape got their Award for the show they're performing, which is a devised theatre piece about the imprisonment and abuse of 'morally defective' women in mental hospitals in 1940s Britain. It got outstanding reviews in Edinburgh, and I guess the only thing to say against it is that you can probably see it somewhere else: they're a UK group, and unlike many of the other Mimefest companies this is hardly your only chance to catch them in this country. 

Then there's Buchinger's Boot Marionettes, who make puppets out of skulls and skin. Their show last year left me (and a lot of others) cold, but their 2009 contribution, The Armature of the Absolute, is already down to returns — perhaps only testament to the strength of its advance images: who would not be drawn to the skinless braying hippo-horse? I guess queue on the day if you want exceptional new material for your nightmares. 

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John Ellingsworth