Following the closure of the long-established London International Mime Festival, and with the invaluable support of its partner venues, MimeLondon continues to fly the flag for contemporary physical and visual theatre.
We’re delighted to announce details of MimeLondon supported events between 9 January and 6 February 2027.
Curated in association with the Barbican, Sadler’s Wells, Southbank Centre and the Place Theatre the season offers seven extraordinary international and British productions including one London and three UK premieres, a silent movie classic with live music accompaniment and eight expert-led Workshops.
From the UK Ockham’s Razor, Gecko and Andrew Dawson return with wonderful, emotionally charged productions exploring trust, migration and parental loss. Franco-Norwegian Plexus Polaire brings it’s astonishing, performance, video and life-sized puppetry interpretation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to the Barbican Theatre, whilst at the Barbican Pit Belgium’s Modo Grosso’s circus of objects, juggles movement, matter, light and wonder.
In an hilarious comment on consumerism at the Southbank’s Purcell Room, Austria’s Michael Zandl and his company offer a feast where art can literally taste delicious. At the Queen Elizabeth Hall, dance-theatre, live art and a mile of sensuous silk and cashmere combine in a world of chaos and beauty created by Miet Warlop, Belgium’s representative at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Buster Keaton’s silent comedy masterpiece The General returns to the Barbican Cinema, this time with a new music score played live by Haiku Salut.
Complementing the live events a great spectrum of physical and visual performance skills, Workshops exploring Circus-Theatre, Clown, Comedy, Corporeal Mime, Devising, Mask Theatre, Play and Puppetry take place at Shoreditch Town Hall and Hackney Empire.
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London International Mime Festival (LIMF) 1977-2023 was an established, annual festival of contemporary visual theatre. Essentially wordless and multi-disciplinary, its programme embraced circus-theatre, puppetry/animation, object theatre, mime, live art and physical theatre. Founded in 1977 at the Cockpit Theatre as a one-off event to showcase the work of British mimes, theatre clowns and other physical and visual theatre artists, the festival rapidly grew in scale, quality and reputation. Since that start in one small theatre LIMF involved more than thirty London venues – from Tate Modern and West End theatres, to the Almeida, Barbican, Battersea Arts Centre, ICA, Jacksons Lane, Natural History Museum, Royal Opera House, Sadler’s Wells, Shunt Vaults, Soho Theatre, Shoreditch Town Hall and Southbank Centre. The festival presented almost 800 productions over its long history. 2023 was the 47th and final edition.
LIMF was the UK’s longest established annual, international theatre festival, in receipt of Arts Council England funding from its inception, and latterly being a National Portfolio Organisation. In recent years its productions and its two directors Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig received various honours and awards, most notably four Olivier Award nominations including winner of Best New Dance Production in 2015 (Peeping Tom’s 32 Rue Vandenbranden at The Barbican), a Total Theatre lifetime achievement award and the 2017 Empty Space – Peter Brook Special Achievement Award.
Watch The Last Show film about the Festival here >
You can download the ebrochure for every season since 1977 here >
‘The London International Mime Festival’s successor festival is back with another quartet of weird and wonderful shows. LIMF 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 third year in January 2026’ Time Out
‘A masterclass in theatrical invention… turn up to Fish Bowl, or indeed to MimeLondon in general, expecting extraordinary things’ The Times on Fish Bowl
‘Another blindingly brilliant dystopian creation from these physical theatre industry leaders’ All That Dazzles on Gecko’s The Wedding
‘There’s incredible fluid strength in Sadiq Ali's beautiful and menacing piece (Tell Me) for MimeLondon 2026 that uses Chinese pole techniques, among others, to explore perceptions of HIV’ Everything Theatre on Sadiq Ali Company’s Tell Me
‘Their lyrical prowess on the trapeze – their first love – takes flight, and it’s all the more beautiful because they are no longer lithe 20-somethings. They twist together, hinging around each other in that cramped dangling space and displaying a perfect alignment of confidence and trust. Mooney is often wholly held off the frame, sometimes by nothing more than Harvey’s flexed feet – their fluid chains of movement and arcing backbends are transfixing. If this is their farewell to performing, I’m not sure they could have said it better’ The Stage on Ockham’s Razor’s Collaborator
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Top image: Michael Zandl FOOD. photo: Jona Harnischmacher
