I spy with my little eye…

Cast your mind back to 1977, a year when Charlie Chaplin had just died, and with him the legacy of silent film, writes Molly Pavord.

This was also the year that the London International Mime Festival was started by Joseph Seelig, who originally saw it as a “marketing experiment” for his theatre The Cockpit.

The festival continues to evolve, reviving Chaplin’s legacy of mime by welcoming in visual theatre performers from around the globe.

This year the festival will be returning on January 16 until February 5 with a diverse programme of performances from 14 companies showcasing a range of talents including mask theatre, clowning, circus, cutting-edge live art, dance, mime and puppetry.

Co-director Helen Lannaghan said: “We stay very true to the fact that the work isn’t driven by spoken narrative.

“Of our five senses the biggest one by far is sight. 83 per cent of our senses come through the eye, and so it has a huge effect and impact on carrying messages.

“Language is crucial but sometimes there are emotions, feelings and ways of expressing things that words just can’t really cover. You need to feel it, you feel it in your chest rather than hearing it through your ears.”

She added that while in the early stages of the festival their focus was solely on clowning, they have now broadened their horizons to penetrate contemporary issues.

This year, performers will explore early onset dementia, the feminist principle, climate change, loneliness and economic disparity.

The programme of events will be opened by a Belgium double act of dance acrobats who humorously play with their physical differences in a stream of endlessly surprising movement.

The finale will take place at the Barbican theatre, with a spectacularly cinematic performance Triptych by Olivier Award-winning dance-theatre innovators, Peeping Tom.

Ms Lannaghan said: “Each person will have a different experience when they come out of the theatre, and each one is absolutely valid, and I love that that resonates with each person differently. It really is theatrical magic.

“People can expect to see something different, that they haven’t seen before. It’s amazing and it’s a real adventure for the audience. People can be surprised, amazed, shocked and delighted in equal measure.”