Various
£18-£32
The London International Mime Festival was a true city staple, bringing weird and wild physical theatre from across the globe to the capital each year. Rarely ‘mime’ in the stereotypical sense, the fest brought mind-expanding theatre to London for 47 years straight. The 2023 edition was its last, but MimeLondon is the same idea in all but name, and returns for its second edition in January 2025.
Although smaller than the multivenue LIMF, MimeLondon retains the most valuable bit, that is to say the programme of larger scale international work at the Barbican. This year’s four shows are Brothers Grimm adaptation La Manekine (Jan 14-18), Not A Word (Jan 21-25), a silent tribute to the Irish navvies who helped expand the West, dystopian ‘microcinema’ show Five Lines (Jan 28-Feb 1), and in the main theatre Moby Dick by French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire, a puppet-driven version of Herman Melville’s great novel that comes complete with a ‘whale-sized whale’.
