Flesh is a fascinating and wonderfully entertaining work, both beautifully understated yet epically impressive, and crafted with meticulous precision. This production makes the ordinariness of being humanboth sublime and interesting and it will certainly have you laughing your socks off!

The London International Mime Festival invariably throws up some gems. This show by Belgian physical theater company Still Life, which went down well at the Avignon Festival last year, is a prime example.

From four images flow a smorgasbord of emotions. They split out off the

stage and fill the Barbican Theater with their tender embrace. ln just 
under an hour and a half Flesh, the UK debut of Belgian theater company 
Still Life, communicates tragic truths about the human condition all without uttering a word. 

"Death is always present - it reminds us that we are alive"

«   These are four mute and concise pieces around the embrace, flashes one might say, so striking that they speak without words – the spectator

takes over, words race through his mind in the face of wildly everyday and banally terrible situations that the instigators, inventors, directors, Sophie Linsmaux and Aurelio Mergola, put before his eyes.»

“What counts and what we absolutely want to dig into is this collective experience of living at the same time in the same place, without interference. It is so important, necessary, and increasingly rare.»

« Dark humor flirting with the most unbridled fantasy is tonality 

dominant of FLESH, a show without words but of an impressive

plastic strength.

“So many places where the two authors put the bodies to the test du 

real, to deal with life and death, with the same biting irony”

“With FLESH, the creative duo formed by Sophie Linsmaux and Aurelio Mergola continues its research on the need of the Other, and on the state of the body in our contemporary societies. Composed of four short forms, this entirely visual show plunges us into solitudes that are just waiting to be populated. »

“IF FLESH touches us so much, it is thanks to the magnificent work of the company Still Life [...]. What precision in the acting... bodily, down to the smallest detail, what precise cutting of the sequences, what mastery of the rhythm of the performance. We rejoice in the spectacle, we reflect on what it tells us. »

“The Still Life company of Sophie Linsmaux and Aurelio Mergola tackles the theme of the body in a visual show, both light and deep, which brings together a few short stories. [...] The force of the spectacle resides in the balance which it carries out permanently between the laughter which fuses and the tears which rise, sometimes at the same time. »

“By propelling us from a hospital room to a Virtual room, the 1h15 of the show of [la cie] Still Life sways between mischief and tragedy. A success that holds the spectator's eye captive despite the absence of dialogue. Mimesis of tragic events and modern vaudeville, the theatricality finds a fair balance well summed up by the title FLESH, touching dystopia. »

“The show calls on so many registers combined to perfection that it is magnified, the aesthetic work largely at the height of what the Cie Still Life is used to offering. [...] LWithout words but with a ton of malice and justified intentions, the Company Still Life carries the public in its wacky cavalcades. A public fascinated, intrigued and for its greatest joy undermined. »

"Between laughter and emotion, Sophie Linsmaux and Aurelio Mergola (with Thomas Van Zuylen for the screenplay, Sophie Leso for the setting in space and movement and Aurélie Deloche for the scenography as just as clever) lead us into their world where gestures take precedence over speech, where bodies express what voices do not say. »

“Through four short stories without words, Sophie Linsmaux and Aurelio Mergola penetrate into the intimacy of human relationships. Between emotion and laughter, FLESH magnifies the touch of the flesh, the physical contact, the embrace relegated to the rank of fantasy in these times of pandemic. »

“Hilarious and tragic, four moments that put into perspective, presence and absence, lack and desire, greed and spite. »

“In these piquant chronicles of human mores in the 21st century, reality reveals its hilarious absurdity in a surprise box (amazing scenography by Aurélie Deloche). It is sometimes adorned with fantastic to underline the line, in particular in a finale grand-guignolesque at will. »

"The two founders of Still Life like to say that they paint without words 'a world where everything is going terribly wrong': a formula which implies the importance of the grain of sand in the well-oiled machine of the system, the trigger of an often catastrophic situation that will arouse the emotion of the public and reconnect it to our common humanity. “How, through something terrible, we can reveal a spark, a hope”, notes Aurelio Mergola. »