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![Clown Bluey's History of Clowns: Mime Clowns: The 20th Century's most remarkable Mime, Marcel Marceau as Bip [John Topham Picture Library]](http://www.clownbluey.co.uk/albums/Clown-Blueys-History-of-Clowns-images/Marcel_Marceau_as_Pip.jpg "Clown Bluey's History of Clowns: Mime Clowns: The 20th Century's most remarkable Mime, Marcel Marceau as Bip [John Topham Picture Library]")
Clown Bluey's History of Clowns: Mime Clowns: The 20th Century's most remarkable Mime, Marcel Marceau as Bip [John Topham Picture Library]
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Clown Bluey's History of Clowns: Mimes: Marcel Marceau. As a great lover of the works of Charles Dickens right from his childhood, Marcel Marceau's Bip came from a corruption of the name of Dickens' hero 'Pip' in 'Great Expectations'. Acknowledged as one of the greatest Mimes in the 20th century. Ned Chaillet once wrote in "The Times" of London: 'If the French turned their artists into national treasures as the Japanese do, Marceau would almost certainly be the first addition to the national coffer'. He was born in Strasbourg on the French/German border on 22 March 1923. His father was a Jewish butcher named Mangel who later perished in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. He was a great admirer of all the silent cinema clowns, particularly Chaplin and Keaton, whilst Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy become a close friend. He was in the French resistance, helping to escort Jewish children to safety in Spain and Switzerland. A year before the war ended, he joined the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt to study under Charles Dullin, a theatrical director of genius. Marcel's clown, Bip, was born in 1947 in the tiniest of Paris theatres, the Theatre de Poche and has been an outstanding success ever since. However insouciant Bip appears, to Marceau he is a personifier of the free concience of man, which is beyond any political system. Marceau considers himself a progressive, someone who advocates peace and who has struggled for enlightenment in the world: 'My art has to bring light to man, as a painter does when he has something to say about society, as Goya and Daumier did. I am not just an entertainer. I want to be a man who will present as an active witness my time, and want to describe without words my feelings about the world.' Marceau has appeared in films and on television, but it is on the stage where he particularly thrives. Marceau's timing and structure of his performance have been copied by many of his pupils and followers. But a clown's character can come only from inside him; the technique is mere clothing. |
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