“We don't really let our imagination run wild... I want people to feel like they have a bit of their childhood still left in them.”
Peter Wilson's goal as The Mime Guy is simple, and he's bringing his silent stylings to Brisbane Powerhouse in a new show called 'Odd Sock!'.
Born mostly deaf – and now with only 60 per cent hearing in one ear – Peter spent most of his life lip reading, leading him to want to know more about communication through speech and movement.
“From being bullied as a kid and realising everyone gets picked on, you have two choices,” he says. “You either use it towards your strengths, or you don't... When I got picked on, especially being told I couldn't do something, that just made me want to do it more.”He took up ballet as a way to separate himself from the bullies, and clear his mind.
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Peter's curiosity about humans and communication didn't lead into mime until after meeting the man hailed as the world's best mime artist, Marcel Marceau. “I had a very limited view on mime,” he says. “I travelled eastern Europe and did a little bit with the orphanages, and prior to that I did some training with a mime artist in Australia... When I met Marcel Marceau, I didn't know what to expect, I had a little chat with him and he said 'if you love it, keep it up'.”
It wasn't until a few years later that Peter put his mime skills to proper use, and began performing to audiences.
He says he doesn't like to follow the “black and white rules” that traditional mime artists follow. Special effects and sounds are something Peter uses to enhance his shows, and he describes his style as a cross between Marcel and the Umbilical Brothers.
'Odd Sock!', his latest show, is the story of a man/ kid who has lost his sock and must go on a daring adventure to find it again. It's something a lot of people can empathise with. He uses pop culture references to relate back to his audiences. “The 'Indiana Jones' theme is in it, and the theme song from 'Pirates Of The Caribbean', a little bit of 'Gangnam Style' and even a 'Star Wars 'bit,” Peter says.“Because I wear a tonne of makeup on stage, the moment I get off and it's all removed, I'm able to talk to my audience directly and they don't even know it's the guy from the show,” he laughs.
To keep it interesting, Peter also throws a few spanners in the works, writing in what he calls “confusion nuggets”; parts of the show that can be viewed a few different ways, all of which are correct. It means people can form their own opinions and perceptions when they leave 'Odd Sock'.
“If a group of friends were to come along, I guarantee you there will be a part where one friend says 'he definitely picked up a hot cup', and the other says 'no, it was a cold one'... People will view it differently, but they all end up with the same story at the end,” he says.'Odd Sock!' performs Brisbane Powerhouse 17-20 December as part of Wonderland Festival which runs 3-20 December.
