If I could I would…
Mimbre
All Saints Church
Brighton Festival
If I Could I Would was a fast-paced piece of physical theatre featuring virtuoso acrobatics, imagination and humour that recognised it sometimes takes a superhuman effort to rise above the relentless demands of everyday urban life.
The all-female cast perform an array of familiar characters in a day where coffee is spilled, the commute is a trial, street-life is a threat and office politics get under the skin. From every woman to superwoman, the show delivered a heart-warming message to everyone about resilience in the face of the everyday grind.
For more info on Mimbre, click here:
The trio quickly won over the audience with their superb acrobatics and breath-taking balancing, all done with a gentle every-day casual edge. There are some superb quick changes which are seriously impressive and the set is constantly morphing as the piece progresses. The second part of the show having an extended narrative concerning two rather spry and cheeky older lades, who had appeared in the first part, this time they were more active delivering a wonderfully engaging and cheeky performance of giving the third acrobat, who’s day had not been going quite so well, a taste of being a super heroine. With wonderful echoes of Supergran they were delightful. The agility and strength paired superbly with the accomplished physical theatre to combine into a fun, thrilling and entertaining show.
Mimbre don’t challenge; they change and provide a healthy counter narrative to the usual edge-of-danger acrobatics and physical theatre and ‘If I could I would’ allows them to convince us that we’ve all got capacity to fly, have pools of resilience and sometimes you just need two cheeky old ladies at a bus stop to give you a push.
I left All Saints grinning and delighted by the warmth of the performers and the quality of their compelling optimistic physical narrative, it’s so lovely to see older women held up and celebrated in such a beautifully subversive way.
See the full show details here