The British actor, director and writer Simon McBurney (1957) founded the theatre company Complicité in 1983 with Annabel Arden and Marcello Magni. 'A nomadic family', McBurney calls his company. Complicite's work is strongly influenced by the ideas of Jacques Lecoq, (1921-1999), one of the pioneers of mime and physical theatre. Complicité's performances are extraordinarily visual style with tangible, poetic and surreal imagery supporting the text. They make ample use of technology, like film and video projections, and by integrating text, visuals, music and action, the company aims to create a surprising and disorienting theatre experience. Complicité won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for A Minute Too Late in 1985. Under McBurney’s artistic direction, the company has gone on to win over fifty prestigious theatre awards. McBurney was also involved with a range of projects, such as The Vertical Line (1999) from writer and art historian John Berger, French and Saunders Live and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino in the title role. He has acted in almost fifty films, which include The Last King of Scotland, The Theory of Everything and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, as well as in television series like Rev, The Borgias and Utopia.