Mirth in mime from former Cirque du Soleil clown

Julien Cottereau – Imagine Toi

13 – 24 December, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

On a sparse stage, lit with beautifully suggestive lighting, a man gambols alone. Alone, but in an instant his stage feels almost tangibly populated with a host of props, animals, beasts and ghouls. Julien Cottereau exists in a realm conjured by nothing but a twisting body and extraordinary vocal gymnastics.

Here is a man who has channelled the French discipline of mime into a show that is at once a loyal homage to the old greats and a contemporary, accessible and hilarious interpretation of their genius. With a Chaplin-esque rapport with the audience and facial contortions worthy of the virtuoso Marcel Marceau, Cottereau charms and dissembles his way through plots that are both playfully funny and poignantly emotive. He gets entangled in skipping ropes of imaginary chewing gum, plays spiralling ball games with metamorphosing dogs, and fights with snarling monsters conjured only by his ventriloquist roars and cunning sound amplification. But he also falls desolately in love (with a damsel chosen from the audience), has to sacrifice his injured pet and ends with a liberating, ecstatic dance into freedom that sent shivers down my spine.

And this is a show that works for children and adults alike – I have never heard both infectious, cackling laughter from children and genuine belly-laughs from their parents in such earnest. I found that at times the pace drags a little, and that some sketches could be more coherent and succinct, but the overall effect is to enchant, to tickle the funny bone and to dumbfound. I can only feel thankful that the dumbfounding is confined to the audience and that Julien Cottereau continues to create whole worlds with that limber, hypnotic, wonderfully uncanny voice of his.

A disclaimer: I work at Southbank Centre, but the views above are all my own.

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