Category: Blog

Irene Rose Mawer was born on 13 March 1893, to Henry Mawer (Harry) and Rosina Alberta Mawer (née Turner). She grew up in an affluent family in Wandsworth which at the time was in Surrey, but is now in London. As a baby and toddler, Irene would have been dressed

Would you like to read an on-line version of the Art of Mime? If so, it is possible via the Internet Archive. Don’t worry – there’s no catch, and you won’t be scammed or bombarded with dud emails (or at least, I haven’t been!). The Internet Archive, also sometimes called

Although Rocco is not using the Irene Mawer technique, he is using a very clear technique, he is also telling a story, and best of all – he is not ‘gurning’. So many mimes today feel that they need to use over-the-top facial expressions. Fine! I am not going to

Circa 1920, when Irene Mawer would have been in her late twenties, she wrote a book entitled ‘Rhymes and Plays for the Bobblies’. I have a copy of this book, though its provenance is unknown. The book is a soft back and the pages are made of very thick paper,

Did Irene Mawer make an impact upon the world? If you check on-line for Twentieth Century female mimes then you would barely even know that Miss Mawer existed. This is a failing of modern technology, and perhaps, also of Irene Mawer herself. Irene spent fifty years making her mark, but

If Irene Mawer were still alive, she would be a very old lady indeed – in fact, on 13 March 2021 she would be 128 years old! Irene Rose Mawer was born on 13th March 1893; the sixth and final child of affluent parents in the Wandsworth area of Surrey.

London Sculptor, Chris Kenny often uses found objects (in this case, twigs), to create works of art.  www.chriskenny.co.uk As soon as I saw these photos on Facebook, I made a mental connection with Irene Mawer and Ruby Ginner. My instant thought was ‘frieze lines’! The twigs are photographed on a

Finding information about which books Irene wrote, and when they were published, is quite difficult. My research on-line just leads me to modern companies who are re-publishing what seems to be every book in the world, at a price. Unhelpfully, all of their books are listed as having been published

In last week’s post, I spoke about Irene Mawer’s approach to creating a mime play for children (Chapter 3 of The Art of Mime). This week I look at the final segment of that chapter, which focuses on how to use a mime play as a teaching tool. This mainly

In the early 1930s, Irene Mawer wrote a book called ‘The Art of Mime’ in which she explained the history and the technique of mime. A section of the book is devoted on how to write mime plays and although Miss Mawer’s language and terminology is considered very old fashioned