If I weren’t in Costa Rica right now I’d be seriously wishing I were in London. Even if you’ve never been and might never go, it’s good to know that the London International Mime Festival is now entering its 40th year. Since its inception in 1977, the festival has gone way beyond mime to encompass circus, clown, physical theatre, mask work, puppetry, and more. In the process, it has not only popularized a lot of deserving movement-oriented work, but has opened eyes outside the already converted. As the NY Times comments this week, “over four decades it has had a significant impact on British theater, disrupting the dominance of scripted plays —something that hasn’t quite happened the same way in the United States.”
You can read the Times article here, but meanwhile here are some preview images and videos of five of this month’s offerings that highlight physical comedy.
ALL GENIUS ALL IDIOT Svalbard (Sweden)
Svalbard bends the edges of contemporary circus and blends it with theatre, physical comedy and live music to create a truly original piece that you will remember for its surreal quality as well as its awe-inspiring skills.
EXPIRY DATE BabaFish (Belgium)
Dominoes topple… an hourglass is overturned. Time is ever-present in this ephemeral retrospective of one man’s life, his scattered memories conveyed through acrobatics, movement, music and dance… Assisted by her father, an inventor by trade, Swedish-born artist Anna Nilsson has devised a Heath Robinson-esque set, where a ball bearing spins around weird and wonderful machinery and pendulums wave. It provides a poignant backdrop for an abstract tale about time running out, characterised by four performers and their unpredictable mix of acting, juggling, hand-balancing and singing.
MARCEL
Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris (France) By and with Jos Houben and Marcello Magni
“An entire performance history lurks behind this ticklish two hander, the opener for the London International Mime Festival, created by Jos Houben and Marcello Magni, two of contemporary theatre’s greatest clowns. This funny, heart-breaking show celebrates the pair’s relationship stretching back to the early 1980s with Complicite and ground-breaking shows such as A Minute Too Late and More Bigger Snacks Now. It also draws on the history of clowning from commedia dell’arte to the slapstick of 19th-century music hall and early 20th-century film… the show continually reaches out to the audience, playing us with a knowing sweetness. It’s a brief hour that gives the kiss of life to the ancient art of the gag.” —Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
INFINITA
Familie Floez (Germany)
In Infinita, a cast of irresistible, larger-than-life characters are seen both as warring children, and then in later life as residents of an old people’s home. The wily games of nursery one-upmanship seem hardly to change with the passage of time; survival of the craftiest is still the rule of the day. Infinita plays out in a succession of increasingly hilarious scenes, combining poignancy, astute observation and some superbly skilled slapstick.
NAUTILUS Trygve Wakenshaw (New Zealand)
NAUTILUS is the final part of rubber-limbed Trygve’s ‘underwater trilogy’, the follow-up to delirious, sell-out physical comedies KRAKEN (LIMF’15) and SQUIDBOY. Oozing with whimsy, dripping with charm and magnificently mad, Trygve is his own animator in a cartoon world. A master of risqué innocence, he trained with Philippe Gaulier, developing a uniquely eccentric style of mime-comedy that has won him legions of fans the world over.
Johnny Hutch, one of the unsung heroes of physical comedy, would have been 100 years old today. As things turned out, he not only made it past his 93rd birthday, but remained active as an acrobatic performer until age 69, and as a teacher and choreographer late into life, last working as a stunt coordinator for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of 87. He was also married to the same woman, Jane Phillips, for 66 years, passing away — probably not coincidentally — months after she did in 2006.
Hutch had a long and illustrious career as a comedy acrobat with such troupes as the Seven Hindustans, the Seven Volants, the Herculeans, and the Half-Wits, appearing more than any other artist ever at the London Palladium, and sharing the stage with such stars as Grock, Louis Armstrong, and Bob Hope. However, he probably gained greatest recognition as Benny Hill’s bald, elderly sidekick in the last two seasons of Hill’s BBC comedy show.
More significant to today’s performers (youse guys) is that Johnny Hutch deserves huge praise for generously sharing his knowledge with others, in the process becoming a key transitional figure between the circus/variety world of the mid-20th century and the alternative theatre world of the past fifty years. He created the Johnny Hutch School of Professional Acrobatics and Stagecraft —”Producers of High Class Specialty Acts. Knockabout and Fight Sequences. Traditional Trap Routines” and coached Robert Downey, Jr. for the title role in the movie Chaplin. He not only worked for established institutions such as the RSC, but also assisted fringier enterprises such asPeople Show and The Kosh, and helped establish Zippos Circus. So giving and dedicated was he to transmitting his skills that he was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth for “service to young people of the theatrical profession.”
Johnny Hutch as a clown.
As usual, you can learn more about Johnny Hutch on the excellent Circopedia site or by reading his memoir of his early days, Somersaults and Some Aren’t, published as a special edition (no. 165) of King Pole, the British circus magazine.
Here are a few video clips, followed by some remembrances by two huge fans, and finally a chronology of Hutch’s life taken from his memoir.
Click here to see Johnny and The Seven Volants on the Circopedia site. This is from 1965.
A year later, these are the Herculeans at the Royal Hippodrome. Click here to watch, again at Circopedia.
The Half-Wits
And in 1977, the Half-Wits on the Cliff Richard Seaside Special, filmed at Deauville, France. That’s him second from left in the photo.
This routine, by the way, reminds me of one Victor Gaona taught at Ringling’s Clown College back in 1973, and that has been seen in some form in that circus many times.
A skit from the Benny Hill Show. Recognize anyone?
An obituary by acclaimed British actor Anthony Sher, which first appeared in the London Guardian.
The acrobat Johnny Hutch, who has died aged 93, passed his skills on to actors as well as circus performers. He also became an actor himself – and was the little old man whose bald head was patted by Benny Hill on his television show.I first met Johnny when he trained me for the rope climbing and other acrobatics required for Terry Hands’ 1992 RSC production of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great. I shall never forget the surprise of walking into the gym for our first session and discovering that my teacher was a diminutive man of 79. In reply to my “Hello, how are you?” he said in a broad Yorkshire accent, “No alright, ta, just a bit of arthritis in me wrists – it stops me walking on me hands, and I always like to start the day with a little walk on me hands.”
I was speechless. My own father was roughly the same age, and could barely walk on his feet. Who was this man? Quite a phenomenon, it turned out.
In the months that followed, as Johnny bullied and encouraged me through some punishing training sessions, I grew to love and respect him. He was a little gentleman entertainer who always wore a suit and bow tie to work, and who, with a twinkle in his eye, a story on his lips (“When I was on the bill with Judy Garland …”), and with his feet constantly sliding into a soft-shoe shuffle, led me to a world I did not know but found enchanting – the world of circus, music hall and variety.
Born John Hutchinson in Middlesbrough, Johnny was apprenticed to a troupe of acrobats when he was aged 14. They became the Seven Royal Hindustans, specialising in a mixture of European and Arab tumbling, with Johnny as their star performer. At the beginning of the second world war, he was performing in variety acts at the famous Windmill theatre in Soho, but he soon signed up and became a staff sergeant in the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade, training men to drop behind enemy lines. He himself made 66 jumps, and fought in north Africa and Italy.
In the early 1950s, Johnny formed the Seven Volants, a fast-moving acrobatic act, which appeared regularly at the London Palladium. In 1957 they toured South Africa with Boswell’s Circus for a year, living on a train with all the other performers: trapeze artists, clowns and animals. Johnny went on to develop two successful comedy acts, the Herculeans and the Half-Wits. They appeared in Las Vegas, and spent two years touring France with Cirque Jean Richard.
In 1976, aged 64, Johnny achieved a remarkable feat: winning the world circus championships by performing a full-twisting backward somersault. But as he finally grew too old for these physical rigours, he simply reinvented himself again and again.
He became a comedy actor – appearing in the Benny Hill Show for eight years until the star’s death in 1993 – and was the stunt-choreographer for the theatre and dance groups, the People’s Show and the Kosh. In 1994 he was awarded an MBE for services to fringe theatre. He helped Martin Burton establish Zippo’s Circus, Britain’s prime touring circus, and was a consultant on Richard Attenborough’s 1992 film Chaplin, coaching Robert Downey Jr in the silent movie star’s slapstick routines. He also worked on the design of the Teletubbies, creating their particular walk.
But I always think that one of Johnny’s most daunting challenges in his later life was to try and turn an out-of-condition actor like me into a superman. As well as making me look good in Tamburlaine, he created some thrilling moments in our 1997 RSC production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Johnny’s name was invariably linked to that of his wife, Jean, the dancer Jean Phillips, whom he married in 1940; they were a perfect double act, one of those matches made in heaven, inseparable. He was heartbroken when she died last March. He is survived by their son Brian, daughter-in-law Deborah, grandchildren Sophie, George and Eleanor, and great-grandchildren Molly and Clara.
Don Stacey writes: Looking back on his 80-year career in show business, Hutch said, “You had to be versatile to survive in music hall. I became Britain’s finest tumbler. It sounds big-headed but there was nobody to beat me.” He had started work with the Seven Royal Hindustans aged 13 as top mounter in their pyramid – at only 5ft, he was too small to get a job in the local mills. In 1928 he made his first appearance at the London Palladium on a bill topped by Gracie Fields, making her London debut.
Later, as well as the Seven Volants, he trained groups, such as the Herculeans, who wore old fashioned bloomers, tights and false moustaches. These acts were always in top demand for pantomines – at the Palladium, for instance, they Volants appeared in, among others, Robinson Crusoe, with Englebert Humperdinck, and Aladdin with Cliff Richard, while the Herculeans appeared in Babes in the Wood with Frank Ifield and Sid James.
Hutch continued to arrange knockabout comedy and trapdoor routines in Palladium pantomimes, although he retired from performing them in his 70s.
The Herculeans
And a fond remembrance by our own guest blogger, eccentric dancer and eccentric dance historian Betsy Baytos:
I had the immense pleasure of not only spending time, but filming an extraordinary interview with the great Johnny Hutch back in 1994, for my ‘Funny Feet’ Documentary. Minute and adorable, enthusiastic and funny, energetic, passionate and knowledgeable, it was Johnny, as one of my early interviews and my first in England, who cracked open the door of the Eccentric Dancer’s reach throughout Europe and its strong visual comedic roots.
The two hours on camera were pure delight and he clearly was one of my favorite interviews and greatest inspirations, and we remained in touch for years after. His demonstrations of ‘moonwalking’ and his spontaneous eccentric dance moves to deliver a point he was making, were nothing short of amazing.
He was generous of time and spirit, driving home the importance of having a certain ‘kind of body’ as a necessity in becoming an eccentric dancer. He was also the first to make me aware of how eccentric dance evolved from early pantomine and commedia, and how the French Music Hall had incorporated dance, which led to eccentric. We talked of so many great physical comics and dancers, but a favorite to us both was Grock, which he felt as one of the supreme visual comedians, led to the Eccentric’s character.
He spoke of working with Robert Downey Jr. and how much he enjoyed the experience of passing along Chaplin’s routines. He spoke of when Richard Attenborough called him to first request his assistance and how deflated Attenborough sounded when saying it was a shame no one remembered Chaplin’s routines. But Johnny piped in, “ I know ALL his routines! I used to watch him as a kid!” And he shared with me the incredible outtakes of his working with Downey on the set. I recall asking who might have inspired Chaplin, when he mentioned ‘Fred Kitchen’, whom I must research when back in the UK.
There is so much more, and I cannot wait to transfer his interview when archived, so it will be accessible to all of you! Happy Birthday Johnny! Love, Betsy
__________________________
___________________________
Thank you all! It is never too late to celebrate a life well lived.
It’s that time of the year again when I wish I were in London instead of New York. The reason of course is the 37th edition of the London International Mime Festival, which runs January 10–27. Calling it a mime festival is less accurate than its subtitle of “contemporary visual theatre.” Maybe it was more mime-y back in 1977, but these days it’s a rousing mixture of puppetry, nouveau cirque, clowning, dance, mime, juggling and everything in-between. Especially in-between.
Here are seven shows that look to score high marks in the physical comedy department. Descriptions are from the festival program.
Circle of Eleven (Germany) Leo
I saw this show in New York, loved it, and wrote about it in this earlier post.
Leo throws you upside down, tilts you sideways and messes with your head in the most glorious, brain-tickling way. Reminiscent of a wordless Samuel Beckett scenario in which a man seeks meaning in his isolation, inventing games to while away the time, Leo combines world-class acrobatics, visual artistry and clever film manipulation in a journey of joyful discovery and invention. This is physical theatre taken to creative and imaginative heights. With gravity distorted, you’ll be wondering which way is up and which way down in one man’s fantastical playground. Based on an original idea by German acrobat, Tobias Wegner, Leo has been an off-Broadway hit, a winner of multiple awards, including Best of Edinburgh, and is now touring the world. You will be astonished!
I also saw this in New York, as well as two other Compagnie 111 productions, and recommend them highly.
Performed on a cunning, tilting set, a source of tricks and transformations, this astonishing spectacle unfolds like a dream. A thrilling mix of circus, dance, video, ‘sonic’ object manipulation and optical illusion, Plan B juggles with gravity and perspective. Ten years since its creation, Aurélien Bory and Phil Soltanoff have remounted their visual theatre classic which comes to the Southbank Centre direct from a month-long season in Paris. Aurélien’s work has been a regular highlight of the Mime Festival since its first appearance in 2002 with IJK (‘Think of it as Stomp with balls or Mondrian on acid’ —Sunday Times) and most recently in 2011 with Sans Objet, his acclaimed piece for two juggler/acrobats and industrial robot. Seeing is believing, or more likely not!
My!Laika (France) Popcorn Machine My!Laika’s world is apocalyptic, an electric landscape where a surprising present coexists with an unknown past. There’s humour, bold acrobatics, a well-played Chopin waltz – even a popcorn volcano amongst other delights in this hour of surprising circus theatre, in which three charismatic women and one man live out a series of implausible scenes. Frank Zappa, Jacky Chan, Kurt Schwitters and The Ramones were inspirational in creating this fast-moving collage of bizarre and entertaining events which fuse circus discipline and rich imagination, a winner at the prestigious Jeunes Talents Cirque Awards in 2010.
Ockham’s Razor (UK) Not Until We Are Lost An immersive promenade performance which brings the audience right into the heart of the action, while narrative and images unfold around them. With world class aerial work, and powerful acrobatics performed on specially designed structures, the new show creates an environment which is both physically and emotionally affecting. It questions how fixed is the world around us. Sometimes you need a shift in perspective to find your way.
Zimmermann & de Perrot (Switzerland) Hans Was Heiri I haven’t seen this one, but I did catch their Gaff Aff in New York and it was amazing.
Following their success with Öper Öpis in 2010, Swiss choreographer Martin Zimmermann and composer Dimitri de Perrot return to the Barbican with a company of outstanding physical performers, and their latest production fusing circus, theatre, music and visual arts. Catch your breath as seven performers tumble through an astonishing spinning house whose inhabitants miraculously live life through 360 degrees, jumping, climbing or dancing. Mixing circus, theatre, music and dance, this funny, touching and almost physically-impossible performance will make you think about the cycle of life in an entirely new way.
Mops sneeze, storks swoop in bearing gifts, trees grow out of shoes and long-lost letters tell their stories. The magic starts when an old toy falls out of a torn parcel and one man’s life is changed forever. Acclaimed theatre clown Wolfe Bowart, who made his UK debut at LIMF’07 with the enchanting LaLaLuna, returns with the Helpmann Award-nominated Letter’s End. Weaving together his signature mix of physical comedy, illusion, shadow puppetry and interactive film, Bowart leads audiences of all ages on a dream-like journey down a most magical memory lane. Cut the string, tear open the brown paper, and enter the realm of the fantastic. The adventure begins here!
Smashed is a sensational mix of skill and theatricality inspired by the work of seminal German dance-theatre maker, Pina Bausch. Nine extraordinary performers, eighty apples and crockery galore combine in a series of nostalgic filmic scenes, hinting at conflict and tense relationships, lost love and the quaintness of afternoon tea.
British television comedian Benny Hill made a long career out of sight gags, British musical hall routines, and leering sexual humor. Other than his trademark Yakety Sax sped-up chase scenes, however, you wouldn’t necessarily think of him as a very physical comedian… and this skit probably won’t change your mind. “Scuttle’s Keep Fit Brigade” has some fun with acrobatics, but that’s about it. Like most of Hill’s work, very uneven, some good bits, nothing great, but at least there’s a lot crammed into a short amount of time. In other words, modern television.
One aspect of the whole One Man, Two Guvnors phenomenon that several of us physical comedy mavens have commented on is that today’s theatre-going audience, no matter how sophisticated, has seen little if any really well-done physical comedy, and certainly not the heavy dose they get served by this production. So far I’ve seen the show once on film (National Theatre Live series), once in previews here in New York, and then again on opening night. The response of the live audience was great, with both performances earning hearty, non-stop laughter and a standing ovation at the end.
It turns out the critics liked it just as much. There’s this great web site, stagegrade.com, which reproduces all of the reviews to commercial productions here in New York and gives them an approximate grade. In other words, they read the review, estimate the critic’s response as being, say, a B+, and then average all of these into a composite grade. As you can see above, One Man, Two Guvnors got an “A”. No surprise there.
Click here for access to all of the reviews. A lot of them make interesting reading, as they try to grapple with a form they’re less used to and have to figure out who to give the credit to!
An Interview with Cal McCrystal, Physical Comedy Director for One Man, Two Guvnors
Just two hours before yesterday’s Broadway premiere of the London smash hit, One Man, Two Guvnors, Cal McCrystal sat down with Jim Moore (vaudevisuals.com) and myself for this interview about his work on the show. Significantly, Cal is listed not as an assistant or as a choreographer, but as its “Physical Comedy Director,” his name immediately following that of overall director Nicholas Hytner in the program. Jim and I had already caught the show in previews and absolutely loved it, so when Hilary Chaplain offered to set up this interview, we jumped at the chance to talk shop.
First here’s his short but impressive bio from the Playbill program:
Cal McCrystal is from Belfast. He trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and at École Philippe Gaulier. He is comedy director for the acclaimed clown routines in Cirque de Soleil’s Varekai and Zumanity. He has directed countless comedy shows around the world, including the original Mighty Boosh shows, winning a Perrier Award. Cal has served as a physical comedy consultant to Sacha Baron Cohen on both Borat (presenting the MTV Awards) and the upcoming The Dictator. Cal is director for Giffords Circus and soon begins a new show at the Folies Bergère, Paris. His feature film, The Bubonic Plague, is in post-production.
And here’s the interview, shot by Jim and also featured on this blog poston VaudeVisuals.com:
I’ll have a lot more to say about the actual physical comedy in the show in a near-future post, but click here and here for my two previous posts about this production.
I wasn’t in London at the right time to see the smash hit, One Man, Two Guvnors, but that didn’t stop me from writing about it in this post, and I did subsequently catch a broadcast of it here in NYC as part of the National Theatre Live program. The title of that post was “Commedia Conquers London — Is Broadway Next?” and the answer is yes! — it begins its Broadway run on April 6th. Finally I’ll get to see it live on stage, and I’m hoping many of you will too. Highly recommended!!
I live in New York and have this thing called a job, otherwise the London International Mime Festival would be a good excuse to visit The Big Smoke for nineteen days this January (as if I needed an excuse). If you’re closer to London and less tied down, you’d be crazy to miss it.
The first thing you need to know about this festival, which has been held annually since 1977, is that it’s no longer strictly a mime festival, but rather a heady mix of nouveau cirque, clowning, physical comedy, dance, puppetry, movement theatre and, yes, mime. In fact, they subtitle it “contemporary visual theatre.” The second thing you need to know is that they bring in some very good work indeed.
Here are a few shots from their new brochure for 2012; click on the images for larger versions.
The festival runs from January 11th to January 29th, and tickets are only £15. You can view and download the brochure here and visit the full web site here.
A short follow-up to post 168, the pieing of Rupert Murdoch at a Parliamentary hearing. Jonathan May-Bowles, aka Jonnie Marbles, has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to three to six weeks and fined £250 costs — plus a £15 victim surcharge.
Marbles has also written a short article for the Guardian (London) explaining his actions.
You can read the article and the reader comments here. Even though the Guardian is a left-of-center newspaper hardly sympathetic to Murdoch, the vast majority of reader comments were negative, calling the pie throwing counter-productive. They have a point: it was a rare occasion when Murdoch was being held accountable in public and all Marbles did was make him more sympathetic. It would have been different, and more effective, had Murdoch been caught at a more arrogant moment.
ALL GENIUS ALL IDIOT 
BabaFish (Belgium)
Trygve Wakenshaw (New Zealand)
