‘Company Paradiso’ was set up in 1996 as a paradise for creative artists. In reality, we were a touring theatre company – but we wanted each person in the company to feel creative and inspired in their different roles.
That’s what my theatre training at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris taught me. For an hour or so each day of the week, in ‘autocours,’ students would work in small groups of their own on a theme given by Monsieur Lecoq to perform on the Friday at an exciting end-of-week event.
This principle of collaborative working had inspired Theatre de Complicite, whose shows ‘A Minute Too Late’ and ‘More Bigger Snacks Now’ during 1984 – 85 had encouraged me to go to Lecoq in the first place.
I was at Manchester University Drama Department at the time and even there the lecturers understood, apparently since the days of Rick Mayall and Ade Edmundson in the late seventies, the importance of letting students get on with things themselves. A tradition of Monday night ‘Studio Group’ had grown up where you could choose a slot and do whatever you liked.
By the time I left Lecoq in 1988 I had decided with two other students Joy Merriman and Ezra Hjalmarsson to return to England and set up a theatre company.