Apart from shooting crazy videos in front of romanesque churches in this period I’m also interviewing various people from the physical theatre world. It’s a new project which I’ve called FISICO Lounge. Here’s the latest one with James Donlon. I kept it short and sweet: one and half hour long…. however James had a lot […]


FISICO 2021 – Against all odds

Tomorrow marks a big day here in Italy. The country is easing lockdown restrictions and in theory (underline that) theatres will open up again. Sounds good? Well, a bit too good to be true given the fact we have half a million covid positive active cases (make that one million). Let’s see what happens. In […]


Stream man

Gosh. I’ve just realized I have been a lazy boy not posting here for a while. Or maybe it’s just the opposite. Been incredibly busy on multiple fronts. Among the many our next edition of FISICO (Alba International Physical Theatre Festival) which should take place at the end of May 2021. Given the fact we have […]


Online theatre is like sex over the phone

Tonight I literally stayed in front of my computer all day. Given that it’s been a splendid sunny day outside I’m not too sure if I have wasted my time altogether. Indeed, I probably live in one of the best places in the world, imagine something like the Napa valley but much warmer and with […]


So much to do… so little time

November… As it was to be expected we’re now entering the real storm (something that was easy to predict as I had written in one of my posts). However, despite the stream of bad news we are receiving daily I’m more than optimistic about the future. Yes, we will have to do double Cape Horn […]


It is what it is

I haven’t been blogging lately as about three weeks ago I suffered a tragic loss. My mother suddenly died (we were very close) and I was in a foggy state of mind up unable to focus on anything in particular. Fortunately enough she didn’t suffer too much and did not die of covid. I’m saying […]


The quiet before the storm

It’s been a hectic 2 weeks and I must say that between the unbearable heat and the tons of things I’m doing at the moment I’m on the verge of a breakdown. Now, that happened before and it’s not a tragedy. It’s a good way to know what your limits are and how far you […]


Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman – a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spake Zarathustra   A short post… I haven’t written anything in two weeks and sooooo much has happened since them. Among the […]


Writer’s block and things that rock!

This coming Monday theatres and cinemas will be allowed to open in Italy. How many will actually open is another story. In any case, psychologically, it seems the pandemic is behind us as we are adapting to the new normal (I went twice to a restaurant this week). The virus lurks somewhere, hidden in the […]


No fore PLAY without a CONDOM

On the 15th of June, in theory, theatres should be allowed to open in Italy. It’s a big leap of faith as June is not exactly the best month to open doors…. at least for indoor theatres. June is a month that marks the END of the theatre season for venues, not the beginning. The […]


The picture above comes from pixabay.com, just in case you wonder. The first two months of this earthquake (counting exactly from February 26th when I cancelled all of our shows) were such an emotional rollercoaster it stopped all creative energy. I had all the time of the world but I was blocked, clogged, unable to […]


Wear Sunscreen

Don’t worry about the future Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubble gum The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. On some idle Tuesday Everybody’s […]


I have seen corpses thrown down in front of the temple doors, in front of the altars, to make their deaths even more of a reproach. Some cut off their breath with a noose, and banished, by death, their fear of death, summoning their approaching fate from the beyond. Ovid – Metamorphoses, book VII – Aeacus […]


  The morning….as soon as I wake up. The best time of the day I guess for a lot of people to harness their creative energy. That’s when the the unconscious and conscious are still united for a spell of time before that tiny spider web is swept away by the noise of our mind […]


‘The situation in Great Britain is serious but not hopeless.’ Winston Churchill speaking to Eamon De Valera, 1953 Over twenty days in self-isolation… In my last post I commented how the world as we know it has ended. In a future post I will dwell on my long-term vision regarding the immense geopolitical and economic […]


The end of the world (as we know it)

Today marks my first two weeks in self-isolation. A long time ago I decided I was going to be happy no matter what the circumstances were. It’s a promise I made to myself after having spent years worrying to reach some goal that somehow would have changed the way I feel about life in general. It […]


Theatre and epidemics – A lonely business

And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the city, began at first from this disease. For that which a man before would dissemble and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he durst now do freely, seeing before his eyes such quick revolution, of the rich dying and men worth […]


I and my new best friend: Covid-19

Following my last post of the 22nd of February a lot of things changed in my life. Among the many I happened to make a new friend who will stay around me for quite a long time. His name is Covid and I bumped into him almost unexpectedly. Given that Covid is an acute narcissist […]


If you can’t find time – make time

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. This past 7th of February we had the last performance of the month and we then moved on to organize the first edition of an International Physical Theatre Festival in the city of Alba, Italy. I didn’t want to write about it as it was a real shot […]


Writing a story, fermenting wine

“How long does it take you to write a story?” That’s one of the questions people generally ask me. The truth is that the actual ‘writing’ is fairly fast. What really consumes time is the research on the topic I have to write about. As I originally wanted to be a scriptwriter for film (theatre […]


As many journeys mine started solo. It was the effort of a person trying to make order out of chaos on the stage. As I kept pushing and pushing, through successes and failures (a lot of them… more to that in another post) I eventually found a personal style and the types stories to which […]


Still on tour. Today we’re sleeping in a hamlet overlooking the city of Domodossola in Northern Italy (near the Swiss border). Given the majority of my time is consumed in a multitude of tasks that need my attention I’ve decided I’m going to write shorter posts compensating the lack of length with higher frequency. In […]


When you’re falling… Dive!

You’re falling from an incredible height. You scream, your arms jerking without control, your legs twitching and kicking in the desperate hope to find something that will halt the fall. How did you get here? It’s not fair. When You’re Falling Dive by Cheri Huber is one of the books I keep in my library and I […]


Taking a holiday from yourself

“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”  [Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (New York: Liveright Books, […]


Hot stuff and cold meals

It’s 2 am as I’m writing this post. Given that I seem unable to get any sleep I’ve decided to duly fill out our journal with the latest from our tour with the show Brexit. During the last seven days we’ve been pretty much on the road. First, performing in the town of Piacenza (that’s […]


When you feel you can’t carry on – turn around and look behind you

I have to tell you the truth. I can’t take more of this s**t. Today I’m feeling literally exhausted to the point where I’d be happy to throw the towel and quit. Yes. Q-U-I-T. Although it has been a formidable two years with our show ‘Brexit’ I feel mentally overwhelmed. It’s not the acting that […]


How blue is your ocean?

You’re a shark. A hungry mean-looking shark. Like the one below. You are swimming alone in crystal clear blue waters. You’re the only shark there. There’s plenty of fish to feed on. Life is good, after all you’re the meanest killing machine ever devised by nature. You are relaxed, you are happy. When you get […]


In the mouth of the Lyon

We’ve just returned from Lyon where we performed our very first Brexit show of the season. October in Lyon feels more like springtime than fall. Sunshine, 24 degrees outside, such a delightful place to be. This time we have with us Fabrizia, who is starting up this month as an administrative trainee. She came along […]


Ironing clothes with El Cid on my mind – Self motivation is the key

Tomorrow we’re off to Lyon, France. For our first performance of BREXIT. The first performance is always a killer, at least for me it always has been. After almost 100 performances of the same show you tend to take things for granted after a long pause. You lose focus, you get lazy. It’s like cranking […]


The Glory and the Gory

So here we are…ready for a new theatre season with BREXIT and other shows that will follow. As a company we’re on for a tiring 9 months of non-stop touring and I thought it may be useful to fellow artists, or any other person interested in the crazy and delusional world of theatre, to keep […]


BREXIT – You cannot predict the future

As we’re about to stage our second performance here in Brighton I’m writing this final post from an undisclosed location of the city. The day seems to be blessed with a warm summer sun, people are out on the beach or sipping a drink in the many bars scattered along the seafront and I have […]


BREXIT – the 5 ingredients of Populism

We’re finally in Brighton. Today I’ve been walking about flyering a little bit while enjoying the city at the same time. Given that yesterday I woke up at 5 am and didn’t go to bed until 2 am of the following day I’m feeling a bit weak, to say the least. In any case, I’m […]


BREXIT – In England even God speaks English

When I wrote my last post I was killing time in the north of France. Today I’m in the opposite side of the country i.e. in Cannes waiting to enter inside a conference room at the Cannes Film Festival. One wonders what the effects of Brexit will be on cinema, apart from theatre. Who knows, maybe […]


BREXIT – That’s the French Parliament

So….I’m back at the keyboard after a few intense days. Today I’m in France warming up for yet another show which I took to Brighton Fringe in 2016. Indeed these past 3 weeks I’ve been in France quite a lot touching different cities and regions: Tours, Besançon and the small town of Longwy, where I […]


BREXIT at Brighton Fringe – Darth Vader for PM

So here I am on a Wednesday afternoon turning into evening in less than an hour staring blankly at my computer screen. What on earth shall I write about? I ask myself. I mean, let’s face it, in theory I should write about our new show coming to Brighton Fringe at the end of the […]