This is the last issue of Total Theatre to be published this century. However, don't expect a Millennium Special issue in January. Surely we'll all be suffering from Millennium-fatigue by then. It will be business as usual for us as the New Year dawns. It's nice, however, that in this issue we have the chance to celebrate some of the best work currently being performed in the field of mime, physical and visual theatre as the new century approaches.

For four weeks in Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival this summer, a team of assessors and panel of judges watched more than one hundred performances by companies participating in the 1999 Total Theatre Awards. It's with great pleasure that we announce the winners of this year's awards in this issue. It is hoped in years to come, that the Total Theatre Awards will become a regular fixture on the roster of national awards recognising excellence in the field of performance. This year, the awards ceremony at The Assembly Rooms was even featured on BBC2's Edinburgh Nights. Our thanks go to all those who helped to make this year's awards such a success.

Summer is the season for festivals. In this issue Ray Newe reports on the Mimos Festival Europe's only festival wholly dedicated to mime outside of the London International Mime Festival. Watch out for an interview with the Spanish performer La Ribot, who won this year's Critic's Prize at Mimos, in the next issue. Anne-Louise Rentell spent a weekend at Glastonbury back in June, where she came across the extraordinary Jonathan Kay. She interviews him on page 10. The reviews section of this issue includes performances from the London International Festival of Theatre, as well as coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

We continue to introduce performance styles from around the world, with Paul Allain's article on the Suzuki Technique. Continuing with the actor-training theme, Dick McCaw, Director of the International Workshop Festival (IWF), contributes an article on IWF's ambitious seven-year plan. My thanks go, as always, to all those contributors who generously offer so much of their time to Total Theatre for free. Have a happy new year.