# Marcello Magni
**Marcello Magni** (full name Marcello Luigi Giuseppe Magni; 27 June 1959 – 18 September 2022) was an Italian actor, director, teacher, and movement director who co-founded the British physical theater company [Complicité](https://www.edgepedia.org/complicite), originally called Théâtre de Complicité, in 1983.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) Admired for the physicality of his performances and his wordless connection with audiences, he also worked widely with [Peter Brook](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-brook) at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris and was the voice of the title character in the children's claymation series *Pingu*.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | 1959, Bergamo, Italy; 18 September 2022, Bergamo, of prostate cancer, aged 63[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) |
| Training | École Jacques Lecoq, Paris, graduating in the 1980s; further study with Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, and Pierre Byland[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni) • [3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) |
| Complicité | Co-founded in 1983 as Théâtre de Complicité with Annabel Arden, Fiona Gordon, and Simon McBurney[4](https://www.complicite.org/about-us/our-history/) |
| Early hits | Co-creator of *A Minute Too Late* (1984) and *More Bigger Snacks Now*, which won the Edinburgh Comedy Award, then the Perrier Award, in 1985[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) |
| Peter Brook work | *Fragments* (2007), movement direction for *A Magic Flute* (2010), *The Valley of Astonishment*, *Why?* (2019), and *The Tempest* (2020) at the Bouffes du Nord[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) |
| Marriage | Married the actress Kathryn Hunter in 2011; their last joint stage appearance was Ionesco's *The Chairs* at the Almeida in February 2022[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) |
| Legacy | The Premio Marcello Magni for theater, a €20,000 prize for emerging artists under 35, was established in his memory in Bergamo[5](https://premiomarcellomagni.com/en/) |
## Early life and training
Magni was born in Bergamo in northern Italy, the home town of the first, mid-16th century Arlecchino ([Harlequin](https://www.edgepedia.org/harlequin)) of the commedia dell'arte, a lineage that shaped his own comic identity.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) He was the eldest of three sons of Miranda (née Calliari), a specialist in art therapy for recovering children, and Corrado Magni, a road and bridge construction surveyor.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) He was educated at the Liceo Filippo Lussana in Bergamo and, after a year of military service, studied literature and philosophy at the [University of Bologna](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-bologna).[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary)
He then moved to Paris to train at the school of [Jacques Lecoq](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacques-lecoq), the teacher of mime, mask, and physical theater, graduating in the 1980s.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) • [3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) His other teachers included Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, and Pierre Byland.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni) It was at Lecoq in 1980 that he met [Simon McBurney](https://www.edgepedia.org/simon-mcburney) and Fiona Gordon; together with Annabel Arden, the four founded Complicité in 1983.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/)
## Complicité
The company began as a largely comic mime troupe touring in a yellow Commer Post Office van, playing arts centers, schools, comedy gigs, and later stages, clubs, stadiums, streets, shantytowns, and prisons from Plymouth to Peru.[6](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jan/02/theatre1) • [3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) Magni co-created the earliest shows, including *A Minute Too Late* (1984), a clown show about death and officialdom, and *More Bigger Snacks Now* (1983), which won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1985.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) • [6](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jan/02/theatre1) A 1988 four-month residency at the Almeida theater in London, centered on a revival of Dürrenmatt's *The Visit*, brought the company wide attention; Peter Brook said that version of the play was better than his own 1958 production starring Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary)
Magni's commedia roots showed in his solo show *Arlecchino*, performed at the Battersea Arts Centre in London in 2003 and taken to Italy, devised with [Kathryn Hunter](https://www.edgepedia.org/kathryn-hunter) and Jozef Houben.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni) • [7](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/arlecchino-rev) He also conceived and co-directed *Help! I'm Alive*, an adaptation of Ruzzante's *Il Bilora*, and *Foe*, adapted from J.M. Coetzee's novel.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) In 2017 he directed *Maktub*, based on [Paulo Coelho](https://www.edgepedia.org/paulo-coelho)'s *[The Alchemist](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-alchemist-novel)*, for Complicité's Studio Season.[8](https://www.complicite.org/projects/a-studio-season-2017/)
## Work with Kathryn Hunter and the classics
Magni met Kathryn Hunter through Complicité in the late 1980s; they married in 2011 and worked together constantly on stage.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) • [1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) With the [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.edgepedia.org/royal-shakespeare-company) they co-directed the medieval morality play *Everyman* in 1996.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) At Mark Rylance's Shakespeare's Globe, Hunter directed *The Comedy of Errors* (1999), in which Magni played both Dromios, and they worked together on *Pericles* (2005).[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) He also played the Fool opposite Hunter's Lear in *King Lear* at the Leicester Haymarket in 1997, and appeared in Complicité's National Theatre co-productions *Street of Crocodiles* (1992), based on [Bruno Schulz](https://www.edgepedia.org/bruno-schulz), and *Out of a House Walked a Man* (1994), based on [Daniil Kharms](https://www.edgepedia.org/daniil-kharms).[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary)
Their last appearance together came in February 2022 as the Old Man and Old Woman in Ionesco's *The Chairs* at the Almeida, a performance *The Guardian* described as "spine-shiveringly good".[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) • [3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/)
## Peter Brook and the Bouffes du Nord
Brook's Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris became a second home. There Brook directed *Fragments* (2007), a sequence of five short Beckett plays that toured worldwide, in which Magni played both an optimist and a pessimist in different versions of *Rough for Theatre 1* and joined Hunter and Houben in *Come and Go*.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) He directed movement for Brook's pared-down *A Magic Flute*, which toured the world in 2010, and appeared in *The Valley of Astonishment* (2014), *Why?* (2019), and *The Tempest* (2020), in which he played both Ariel and Stephano.[9](https://www.albanoarte.it/team/marcello-magni/) • [1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) Of his Ariel, Brook said he had "never encountered a greater, lighter Ariel".[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) Magni and Hunter were the two performers in Brook's last stage creation, a reading of Beckett's *Happy Days* at the Bouffes du Nord in the autumn of 2021.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/)
## Screen and voice work
Magni's screen work consisted mainly of cameos: *The Adventures of Pinocchio* (1996), [Rob Marshall](https://www.edgepedia.org/rob-marshall)'s *Nine* (2009), and the *Doctor Who* episode *The Eleventh Hour* (2010), in which he played the owner of a rabidly vicious dog; the director expected to need computer graphics, but the scene was achieved in two takes through Magni's performance alone.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) He also appeared in *The Tudors* and *The Virgin Queen*.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni)
A wider audience knew his voice. With David Sant, Magni provided the voiceover for the children's claymation series *Pingu*, sharing the title role and more than a dozen other characters in an invented language that became known as Penguinese; the Italian clown Carlo Bonomi had voiced the early series.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni)
## Teaching and legacy
Magning taught and worked as a movement director at theaters worldwide, and was in demand as an advisor and teacher throughout his career.[3](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/) His influence on other performers was widely acknowledged after his death: [Paul Hunter](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-hunter), artistic director of Told By an Idiot, wrote that Magni "changed the way I thought about performing".[2](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni) In his final illness he returned to Bergamo, where he died on 18 September 2022.[1](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary) His family and the city established the Premio Marcello Magni for theater, a prize with a total fund of €20,000 supporting original theatrical work by artists under 35, with its first-edition finals staged in Bergamo.[5](https://premiomarcellomagni.com/en/) • [10](https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/26_settembre_16/bergamo-i-finalisti-del-premio-teatrale-nel-ricordo-di-marcello-magni-il-26-e-27-settembre-in-piazza-della-liberta-95d68f82-07ea-4d3e-826c-182bdfd04xlk.shtml)
## References
1. [Marcello Magni obituary, The Guardian (Michael Coveney, 27 September 2022)](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/27/marcello-magni-obituary)
2. [Theatre world pays tribute after death of Marcello Magni, The Guardian (Chris Wiegand, 19 September 2022)](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/19/theatre-world-pays-tribute-after-death-of-marcello-magni)
3. [Marcello Magni, Complicité (30 September 2022)](https://www.complicite.org/news/marcello-magni/)
4. [Our history, Complicité](https://www.complicite.org/about-us/our-history/)
5. [Premio Marcello Magni for theatre](https://premiomarcellomagni.com/en/)
6. [Send in the clowns, The Guardian (Harriet Lane, 2 January 2005)](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jan/02/theatre1)
7. [Theatre review: Arlecchino at Battersea Arts Centre, British Theatre Guide](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/arlecchino-rev)
8. [Studio Season 2017, Complicité](https://www.complicite.org/projects/a-studio-season-2017/)
9. [Marcello Magni, Albanoarte](https://www.albanoarte.it/team/marcello-magni/)
10. [Bergamo, i finalisti del premio teatrale nel ricordo di Marcello Magni, Corriere della Sera Bergamo](https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/26_settembre_16/bergamo-i-finalisti-del-premio-teatrale-nel-ricordo-di-marcello-magni-il-26-e-27-settembre-in-piazza-della-liberta-95d68f82-07ea-4d3e-826c-182bdfd04xlk.shtml)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Theater and dance › Stage practitioners and craft › Directors, producers, and managers › Theater directors of continental Europe*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license