The Italian actor Marcello Magni, who has died aged 63 of prostate cancer, was a co-founder of Complicité (originally known as Théâtre de Complicité) in 1983 and remained at the heart of one of the most interesting and imaginative producing operations in Europe, let alone the UK.
Like his Complicité colleagues Annabel Arden, Simon McBurney and Jozef Houben, Magni trained in Paris at the school of the mime, mask and physical theatre expert Jacques Lecoq, and the techniques acquired there informed all the company’s work over the next 40 years. He was half a step ahead of them already, hailing from Bergamo in northern Italy, the home town of the first, mid-16th century Arlecchino (Harlequin).
