London International Mime Festival 2012

It is January so, once again, it is the mime festival. I only saw three shows this year and I chose… poorly.

The Table by Blind Summit – And so, the table. Three men and a cardboard puppet. On a table. Part puppetry masterclass, part gentle stand up and (least successfully) part existential drama, The Table got rave reviews in Edinburgh and is really enjoyable. However, it is apparently too short to attract a paying audience so Blind Summit have tacked a load of old crap on the end. After an hour or so of the main show we have first a bizarrely shit homage to Eighties pop videos and then a tediously protracted silent film told through A4 paper. They managed to completely invert the concept of leaving the audience wanting more.

L’Immédiat by Compagnie L’Immédiat/Camille Boitel – I was really looking forward to this but it turned out to be piss poor. The missus tried to suggest that our restricted view meant that we couldn’t really appreciate it and, while this was true enough (there was one 15 minute segment where we couldn’t see anything), what I could see was deeply uninspiring slapstick. There was one good bit of mime where one of the actors started to levitated and had to be pulled down to work (but they rather cheapened this by repeating it). Of course, it didn’t help that since this was a piece of physical theatre at the Barbican it was soundtracked by constant braying and hooting from an audience singularly unable to distinguish between comedy, tragedy or even repose. If you find the concept of a man in a purple dress jumping out of a cupboard hilarious, this is the show for you.

Mundo Paralelo by No Fit State Circus/National Theatre Wales and Théâtre Tattoo – According to the programme notes, the thread that held this circus show together was something to do with angels and parallel worlds. This was not at all apparent from the stalls as the cast limped through a series of watery pieces of basic circus that hesitantly segued into each other with only dire French accordion music to link them. Half the cast wore Victorian get up, the other half didn’t appear to have got the memo. There was no wit, grace, drama or even spectacle (with the exception of the excellent juggler).