Obituary: Marcello Magni, co-founder of physical theatre company Complicité

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Marcello Magni in rehearsals for Out of Blixen at Print Room at the Coronet, London (2017). Photo: Dan Fearon

One of the founders of the internationally acclaimed physical theatre company Complicité, Marcello Magni was a gifted performer as well as a director, teacher and movement director of distinction.

Born in Bergamo, northern Italy, Magni trained under Jacques Lecoq, the doyen of physical theatre, in the early 1980s, shortly before he joined forces with Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden and Fiona Gordon to form what was then called Theatre de Complicité, incorporating the skills of physical theatre into narrative storytelling. He worked with the company for more than 25 years.

Magni performed and helped to create nearly all Complicité’s shows in the 1980s and 1990s, including Put It on Your Head (1983), More Bigger Snacks Now (1985), Please, Please, Please (1986), Anything for a Quiet Life (1987) and The Visit (1989). More Bigger Snacks Now was among the first winners of the Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni and Lilo Baur in The Winter's Tale at Lyric Theatre, London (1992). Photo: Tristram Kenton

Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter in King Lear at Leicester Haymarket Theatre (1997). Photo: Tristram Kenton

It was while performing together in a number of Complicité shows that Magni met, and later married, fellow performer Kathryn Hunter. In 1997, he played the Fool to Hunter’s King Lear at Leicester Haymarket Theatre, a production that was reprised at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, earlier this year. Sadly, Magni was unable to take part in the revival due to ill health.

They also acted together in their highly personalised version of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs at Almeida, London, in February this year, a performance The Guardian described as “a gloriously fizzy cocktail of slapstick, physical theatre and silliness”.

Hunter directed Magni in The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare’s Globe in 1999, and in Aristophanes’ The Birds at the National Theatre, London, in 2002. They co-directed Everyman for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1998, and Magni directed Hunter in Tell Them I am Young and Beautiful at the Arcola, London, in 2011.

In 2003 he premiered a solo show, Arlecchino, inspired by the origins of the so-named harlequin character from commedia dell’arte, at Battersea Arts Centre, London, which one reviewer said had her weeping with laughter. Later he took the show to Italy.

Jos Houben and Marcello Magni in Fragments at Young Vic, London (2007). Photo: Tristram Kenton

Patrice Naiambana, Marcello Magni, David Bartholomew Soroczynski and Kathryn Hunter in Tell Them That I am Young and Beautiful at Arcola Theatre, London (2011). Photo: Tristram Kenton

For Peter Brook’s Bouffes du Nord in Paris, Magni appeared with Hunter in two shows, Fragments and The Valley of Astonishment, both of which were also produced in London.

On television, Magni appeared in The Tudors, The Virgin Queen and Doctor Who. Along with the UK-based Spanish actor and mime artist David Sant, Magni also provided the voice effects for later series of the stop-motion cartoon Pingu. Together they came up with the sounds for 17 characters, calling the special language "Penguinese".

Acknowledging Magni’s influence, Told By An Idiot’s artistic director Paul Hunter described him as “a huge inspiration, he changed the way I thought about performing” and how he “showed me many comedic possibilities that only Marcello could discover”.

McBurney, paying tribute, said he was “utterly bereft”, calling Magni “my brother, my comrade, compañero, hilarious dancer, unparalleled improviser and partner in play”.

Marcello Magni was born on June 27, 1959, and died on September 18, aged 63. He is survived by his wife, the actor Kathryn Hunter.