Mimetic Festival: London’s New Cabaret

by Charly Suggett

Waterloo might be one of London’s busiest and best connected stations but it also houses a puzzle of arches just underneath the tracks.

Make your way through the graffiti laden tunnel this week, and you’ll find Finger in The Pie’s ‘Mimetic Festival’ contained within The Vaults, home to over 150 acts from over 50 different theatre companies.

If you’re new to the Festival and fancy dipping your toes in gently, you can wander into Mimetic and prop up the bar, Pi The Mimes Bar to be precise, and take in constant entertainment from ‘Seren Adieu’ all the way from the Valleys, Mimetic and London’s newest Drag act. Whilst being treated to incredible song and dance from hers truly along with her team, you can pick and choose from a variety of different acts and performances within the arches surrounding Pi’s Bar.

You can treat yourself to such styles including mime, cabaret, contemporary theatre and cheeky puppetry with prices ranging between £15 (£10 concs) to £8 (£6 concs) for full performances. The coming together of all of these acts give the perfect opportunity the sample a whole variety of different styles that you may never have experienced before. You can catch the rude and raucous activities of Boris & Sergey, the puppets with the moves and the mouths. You can also witness Pi the Mimes own performance ‘Un Cas De Nostalgie’, a character who was born one year ago at the same Mimetic Festival, or perhaps something a little tamer like that of Miss Glory Pearls ‘The Naked Stand Up’ which is rather self explanatory…

For more details and information on the performances and dates for Mimetic Festival, have a gander online at www.mimeticfest.com. The Festival runs from November 18^th until November 29^th from Tuesday to Saturday (the clowns and mimes need some rest!)

To find The Vaults you can wander down Leake Street in London, SE1 7NN (literally underneath Waterloo Station, so much so that you can hear the Waterloo and City Line running overhead) and keep an eye out for fresh and not yet dry graffiti art lining the pathway to Mimetic.