DIMANCHE

Peacock Theatre

★★★★

“the overall effect is to seduce us with a series of visuals that pack surprising punch, for all their whimsy”

The Belgian companies Focus and Chaliwaté have brought a co-production to the Peacock Theatre as part of 2025 Mime London. Their show Dimanche is a charming and whimsical piece of visual theatre, featuring puppets, humans, and sets that are both miniaturized and full size. The locations are as varied as an arctic landscape, a desert island complete with tsunami, and the house of an ordinary couple (with grandma) trying to adapt to climate change. This is a show for all ages. Children in particular will appreciate the cute animals which range from polar bears, sharks and flamingoes.

Dimanche arrives in London under the umbrella of Mime London, which specializes in finding companies whose work is hard to categorize. Curators Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig have teamed up to take the place of the London International Mime Festival, which closed in 2023. Mime London is smaller scale than the LIMF, but still adept at bringing intriguing work to brighten a dark and post holiday January. With well equipped theatres such as the Barbican and Peacock hosting the festival, it’s a chance for West End audiences to see work that is usually performed abroad.

The work of Compagnie Focus and Chaliwaté in particular resists easy definition. Dimanche features three performers who take on a variety of roles in a series of wide ranging locations. They work as actors, as puppeteers, and even turn into the locations themselves from time to time. The show opens in the arctic. We watch an intrepid film crew document the effects of climate change. Our parka clad team attempt everything from driving in a blizzard to crossing unstable ice. Sometimes the scenes are miniaturized, in which case the body of one performer becomes the snowy landscape. Tiny cars drive over the curves and precipitous bends, headlights blazing through the darkness. When the ice gives way, and the audience finds itself plunged underwater, a video projected onto a screen takes over the action. For most companies, this would be sufficient challenge. But this team is just getting warmed up. From arctic exteriors the audience is transported to a domestic interior where rising temperatures outside make even the most mundane of household tasks fraught with risk. From malfunctioning electrics to melting furniture, we see Grandma and her family attempt everyday activities as though the heat were completely normal. Only when the wind and the rain literally carry the family away do we realize that the joke’s on us. This is what climate change looks like.

Compagnie Focus and Chaliwaté manage to pack in an impressive number of climate change vignettes in just over an hour. They present their theme with humour and a lightness of touch that belies the seriousness of the subject. If there’s one criticism, it is that there’s no overarching narrative, which makes it challenging to tune immediately into each scene change. At other times, the scenery (and the show) seems a bit lost on the large stage of the Peacock Theatre. But the overall effect is to seduce us with a series of visuals that pack surprising punch, for all their whimsy. The ice is melting, polar bears are being stranded on icebergs, and further south, people are struggling with hotter weather, more violent storms, and seas that threaten everything on land. Dimanche makes its point while beguiling us with cute baby polar bears stranded on icebergs, and flapping flamingos caught in destructive winds.

Dimanche is a delightful show that teaches with its entertainment. Kudos to Mime London for making Compagnie Focus and Chaliwaté part of the 2025 line up. See this show if you can. It won’t be in London long!

DIMANCHE

Peacock Theatre

Reviewed on 30th January 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Mihaela Bodlovic

Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

SONGS OF THE WAYFARER | ★★★★ | December 2024

NOBODADDY (TRÍD AN BPOLL GAN BUN) | ★★★★ | November 2024

THE SNOWMAN | ★★★★ | November 2024

EXIT ABOVE | ★★★★ | November 2024

ΑΓΡΙΜΙ (FAUVE) | ★★★ | October 2024

STORIES – THE TAP DANCE SENSATION | ★★★★★ | October 2024

FRONTIERS: CHOREOGRAPHERS OF CANADA | ★★★★ | October 2024

TUTU | ★★★ | October 2024

CARMEN | ★★★★ | July 2024

THE OPERA LOCOS | ★★★★ | May 2024

ASSEMBLY HALL | ★★★★★ | March 2024

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (v95 and v96) | ★★★ | March 2024

DIMANCHE

★★★★

“playful, spectacular and touching”

One Christmas Eve, a young boy’s snowman comes to life and takes him on a journey to the North Pole. The Snowman is a transfixing dance show for all ages in celebration of visual storytelling and Christmas enchantment. In its 27th festive season at the Peacock Theatre, Birmingham Rep’s iconic Christmas show continues to awake childhood nostalgia and childlike wonder.

Take caution. You will have the feature song ‘Walking In The Air’ (Howard Blake) stuck in your head, but the kids love it and so will you! Have a mulled wine and tis the season.

Based on the book by Raymond Briggs and its 1982 film adaptation directed by Dianne Jackson, this performance uses clowning, masks, and ballet to bring the storybook adventure to life. Curtain up and we are introduced to a young boy who wakes up to the joyful discovery that it has snowed. He races outside to build a snowman where he is joined by processions of Christmas carollers and teenagers having snowball fights. This constant flow of familiar characters across the stage makes the world feel ‘real’ at the very top of the show, thus making the gradual reveal of ‘magic’ even more immersive.

The ballet is gorgeous (Robert North) and even more impressive when performed by dancers in giant animal costumes with crafted heads (Robert Allsop) reminding us of Disneyland characters. However, if you are afraid of clowns this might be one to skip. As the snowman is completed and comes to life, his stiff smile and black holes for eyes is slightly creepy. The continuous giggling of kids in the audience may say otherwise. Despite the mask, the snowman’s physicality presents him as a dumb but lovable animation sidekick. He moves with steady and heavy steps, acts the fool, makes fumbles but indulges the young boy’s requests – even stealing a motorcycle. He is Winnie-the-Pooh as a dancing snowman.

Ruari Murchison’s concave design of the stage’s proscenium frame reminds us of the Looney Tunes “That’s All Folks” closing screen, reinforcing the episodic structure of the performance. Each scene holds its own space as a sketch or cartoon which at times quickly overlap for a smooth transition, keeping you (and the kids) spellbound throughout the performance.

It is clear that under the superb direction of Bill Alexander, Birmingham Rep really took their time exploring how to best reimagine iconic moments from the 1982 film to the stage. A standout moment is the scene where the snowman discovers the light switch in the kitchen. Here, a five second moment in the film is transformed into a one-minute comedic transition between scenes that sees the snowman dancing to strobing lights. When we reach the North Pole, the stage adaptation delivers surprises to expand the story from the film. Not only do we meet Father Christmas, his reindeer and other enchanted snowmen, but also a snow queen and a mysterious deviant who might not be a friend to our darling snowman. A welcome pantomime twist that promises some laughs and suspense.

The stage version of The Snowman captures the essence of the animated film whilst making room for comedy, dance and story development with the addition of characters we recognise from other beloved Christmas tales or our own lives. At times playful, spectacular and touching, we are transported to a world that feels both familiar and wonderstruck. The Snowman is magic.

DIMANCHE

Peacock Theatre

★★★★

“the overall effect is to seduce us with a series of visuals that pack surprising punch, for all their whimsy”

DIMANCHE

Peacock Theatre

Reviewed on 30th January 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Mihaela Bodlovic

Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

DIMANCHE

DIMANCHE

DIMANCHE

THE SNOWMAN at the Peacock Theatre

★★★★

“playful, spectacular and touching”

THE SNOWMAN at the Peacock Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd November 2024

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

THE SNOWMAN

THE SNOWMAN