Last year for Halloween I was Bip the Clown, a famous creation of the then recently passed master of mime, Marcel Marceau. I thought it would be good to go an entire day without talking, yet it seemed to arouse violent annoyance in as many people as liked it.

I think it made me realize that I like mime, especially when it's darker and scarier... as in the mimetic acting of German Expressionist silent film... as well as comedians like Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin, who were all essentially mimes. And, come to think of it, so was Cesar the somnambulist in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari... whom I was for Halloween a while ago, come to think of it.


Mime has its roots in ancient Greece but most conventions of modern mime were developed by the Bohemian mime, Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who adapted aspects of the commedia dell'arte for nineteenth century French actors. His most famous character was Pierrot, the moonstruck, dumb romantic in white face and poofy threads. He was portrayed in Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis.


In the 1920s, Étienne Decroux created a highly original take on mime, focusing on statuary poses, a technique known as corporeal mime.

If you find Glam too brainy, too challenging, too confusing, then perhaps you're what the press used to refer to as a Glitter Kid! These bands didn't take their cues from the androgynous, artistic pretensions of David Bowie, Bretty Smiley, Cockney Rebel, Doctors of Madness or Jobriath. They looked to the big, stomping beats and refined stupidity of T. Rex and sliced away everything til there was just a skeleton.
Enjoy!

Kenny

Slik

The Osmonds

The Glitter Band

Mud

The Sweet

Alvin Stardust

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