Mime, mayhem, merde – this is the funniest, most uplifting show I’ve seen in years. Absolutely hilarious, it is a most welcome shot in the arm in these bleak times. Fish Bowl is Gallic genius at its zenith. The show’s creator, writer, director and star is Pierre Guillois, the creative genius who put the show together with his equally talented partners Olivier Martin-Salvan and Agathe L’Huillier. First performed in France twelve years ago and six years after a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, it’s in London for four nights. Buy, borrow, beg, or blag a ticket; it’s the real McCoy. Or should I say the Real De Gaul? It’s a three-hander combining physical comedy, slapstick humour, visual gags, gruesome grotesques, Grand-Guignol set pieces and scatological disasters that will have you in stitches of uncontrollable laughter. It’s as if Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, The Marx Brothers, Max Wall, Laurel and Hardy, Jacques Tati, Marcel Marceau and Mr Bean have been gathered together to outdo each other with ever more outrageous and preposterous comic routines. Fish Bowl is indubitably a comedy. Having said that, because it’s so authentic and realistic, it touches on profoundly moving themes. Of loneliness, for example. Like so many people today, these three neighbours are singletons. Three contemporary Eleanor Rigbys, so to speak. A running gag is the impossibility of connection between these hapless neighbours. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t connect. Or if they do, it ends in misunderstanding, miscommunication and muddle.
The famous scene where Buster Keaton stands still whilst a house frame crashes on him, missing him by inches, is clearly referenced in Fish Bowl. Watch out for the scene in which Pierre exits via the waste disposal system. It’s a tour de force of physical action theatre. Just as the era of the silent movies could appeal to all people, Fish Bowl has the potential to become a global phenomenon, in my view. Maybe mime is the global language that will unite humanity?
Fish Bowl is indebted to Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) with comedy, farce and pathos added. We, the audience, sit in the position occupied by photojournalist L B “Jeff” Jefferies, played by Jimmy Stewart. The stage set consists of three tiny attic flats, much like the apartments seen in the film. Pierre, Olivier and Agathe each occupy a flat. The three flats are like a medieval triptych. To get the full comic depth, continually scan along the three zones. There is always something happening simultaneously in the other two flats. Fish Bowl is about three lonely people living next to each other, trying to get along. Each flat is a fish bowl, and at one point Agathe brings home a fish bowl, a fish bowl in the Fish Bowl, as it were.
Although technically a mime, it’s more like a play with the spoken words muted. So at times the performer’s mouth moves, but we hear no words. However, we do hear them sing. There is also a superb soundtrack of popular hits. Walk like an Egyptian, providing a perfect excuse for some hilarious comic synchronised choreography. The creative team hereabouts is miraculous. Axel Rust’s costumes are superb, be it crash helmets or Y-Fronts. Laura Léonard’s set is so brilliant that it becomes a character in the action. As the lighting in Rear Window alters the mood of a scene, so in Fish Bowl, the on-off lighting allows us to move effortlessly from one apartment to the next with a flick of a switch. Hats off to Marie-Hélène Pinon and David Carreira, or should that be lights off? Paradoxically, for a mime, it’s the sound effects that are absolutely crucial to the show’s success. Roland Auffret and Loïc Le Cadre’s creative ingenuity is breathtaking. Be it the doorbell, the toilet bowl, the helicopters, the storm, or the Karaoke. Fish Bowl has quality and strength in depth in every department. This show demonstrates just what a powerful medium mime is. It’s refreshing to be liberated from the tyranny of words now and again.
Review by John O’Brien
A laugh-out-loud silent comedy.
Once upon a time today, in three small attic apartments in Paris, a big man, a tall thin man and a curvaceous blonde are neighbours. This would be a romantic story if it wasn’t for the fact that these three odd-balls have a special talent for messing things up. Messing everything up. With one disaster leading to another amidst a deluge of jokes, this quirky trio cling to anything that looks like love, life or hope.
Written and directed by Pierre Guillois, co-written by Agathe L’Huillier and Olivier Martin-Salvan
Assistant Director – Robin Causse
Costume Designer – Axel Aust
Set Designer – Laura Léonard
Lighting Designer – Marie-Hélène Pinon and David Carreira
Hair/Wigs/Make-Up – Catherine Saint-Sever
Sound Designer – Roland Auffret and Loïc Le Cadre
Special Effects – Abdul Alafrez, Ludovic Perché, Judith Dubois, Guillaume Junot
Set – Atiler JIPANCO and the technical team of Le Quartz, Scène nationale de Brest
FISH BOWL
Peacock Theatre
28 to 31 January 2026
