Image: Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig, co-Directors, London International Mime Festival (LIMF).

For nearly fifty years, the end of winter has seen artists slink silently onto the stages of London’s theatres. This is the time of London’s International Mime Festival (LIMF), when dancers, circus performers and physical theatre performers take centre stage.

This year, LIMF in its current form comes to a close, as directors Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig make way for new adventures. Ahead of this year’s festival, they answered our questions about the exciting line-up, how the festival encapsulates so much more than the traditional image of mime, and what’s next on the horizon.

Kate Wyver: Lots of people don’t really get mime. What would you say to encourage them to try it?

Joseph Seelig and Helen Lannaghan: We simply describe it as image-rich performance for an adventurous and curious audience. The people who have discovered the festival love that it flies under the radar - it enjoys a bit of a cult status and most of our shows sell out. Our title is historic. 

There’s nothing wrong with mime in our opinion, but we haven’t presented any of what people associate with Marcel Marceau since about 1979! Perhaps we should have changed our title but we couldn’t think of a better word, just one word to encapsulate the great big potpourri of physical, visual theatre and essentially wordless theatre that LIMF promotes. You have to tell your friends to forget any prejudices about mime - this is all eye-opening stuff, that mostly defies categorisation, and often gravity.

Kate: What has the experience been like of putting together this festival in a time of increasing precarity in the arts?

Joseph and Helen: It probably has been more stressful than before. In the early part of the year, covid brought difficulties with travel and cancelled performances of shows we wanted to check out, and various unresolved issues resulting from Brexit have impinged on the movement of personnel and freight. 

The weakness of sterling and rapidly rising cost of everything have also affected our budgets. But there’s so much pleasure in planning a festival, especially this one. Yes, the arts, like so much else, seem in a perilous state right now, but you can’t crush creativity and people’s need for inspiration and all that artists offer.

Image: Not Standing perform 'Through The Grapevine' at The Place, 16-18 January 2023.

Kate: Four of this year’s shows are from Belgium. What’s in the water there?

Joseph and Helen: We’ve often programmed Belgian work over the years, though never as many as this time. Don’t forget that Belgium boasts two very different cultures, the French sensibility of work from Wallonia, and more anarchic spirit of Flemish artists whose sense of humour is close to ours in Britain.  

Whatever is in the water, it certainly makes fabulous beer. We’ve seen so much marvellous Belgian work recently, new shows from festival favourites like Peeping Tom and Mossoux-Bonté as well that from Still Life and our festival opener Not Standing. We could easily have brought more.

Kate: What was the biggest surprise of this year’s festival, and how did you find it?

Joseph and Helen: We’ve followed the work of Still Life for quite a while and were delighted to see the group programmed at the 2022 Avignon Festival. The show was a revelation, a Franco-Belgian group with Flemish disciplined craziness. The four separate acts lurch from one difficult and embarrassing social situation to another. The humour is dark; we had to stifle appalled but helpless laughter. This will be the group’s UK debut and they’re performing in the Barbican’s main house. We hope audiences will take the risk on something quite unknown. They won’t regret it!

Image: Still Life perform 'Flesh' at the Barbican, 25-28 January 2023. 

Kate: This year's shows grapple with topics including dementia, gender identity and displacement and climate change. How does mime allow us to consider topics that can be hard to talk about?

Joseph and Helen: You just said it - ‘hard to talk about’. By and large, LIMF shows are wordless, and that means internationally accessible. Perhaps a picture really is worth a thousand words. Today’s artists in puppetry, physical, visual and even circus theatre are concerned with contemporary issues as much as anyone. Their art forms speak eloquently.

Kate: What is the most unexpected challenge about creating and curating LIMF? 

Joseph and Helen: After so many years there really aren’t many unexpected challenges, mainly just the same ones - finding the most interesting, original and compelling work that’s also going to be available, affordable and stageable! 

Kate: And what brings you the most joy in doing it?

Joseph and Helen: It’s completely wonderful and fulfilling to have created something from scratch, that didn’t previously exist, and which gives so many people so much pleasure. Our audiences come from right across the social spectrum, young and old - we know quite a number of people who have been coming since the very start! 

We’re not weighed down with missions. Our ambition is simple - to offer exciting, often thrilling new experiences for the curious and adventurous. We believe in what we do, we want it to be enjoyable for everyone.

Image: Peeping Tom perform Triptych at the Barbican, 2-5 February 2023. 

Kate: LIMF is now in its 47th year. What does it mean for the festival to be ‘evolving’? 

Joseph and Helen: LIMF is the longest running annual, international theatre event in Britain. It has survived and flourished by constantly evolving, making small changes, staying ahead of the game, featuring bold multi-disciplinary work that might otherwise not be seen in London. Nothing is forever and in the words of the great physical theatre teacher, Jacques Lecoq, 'everything moves’. 

Kate: What’s next for both you and the festival?

Joseph and Helen: We’re taking time to think about the next stage of LIMF’s life-cycle. There’s a book to be written and a huge archive to be organised and properly housed, and some projects which might be better promoted outside the current festival model. Watch this space!

Kate: Is there anything else we should know about this year’s LIMF?

Joseph and Helen: This is your last chance to catch the festival in its current format, so take a leap of faith and dive in! Expect the unexpected, new thinking and amazing movement, and bring an open mind. 

London International Mime Festival

16 Jan - 5 Feb 2023

mimelondon.com

Taking place at the Barbican, The Place, Shoreditch Town Hall, Jackson's Lane, Peacock Theatre, Wilton's Music Hall, Little Angel Theatre, LAMDA, and online.