[1] Throughout their career, the outfit’s core members Hayley Carmichael, Paul Hunter and John Wright collaborated with The Royal Shakespeare Company,[4] Scottish actor Richard Wilson, and poet laureates Carol Anne Duffy[5] and Simon Armitage.
[2] Paul Hunter and British actress Hayley Carmichael formed the company with their former drama teacher John Wright[1] after graduating from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1993.
[3] The cohort’s version of Argentinian Julio Llinas short story and film, Shoot Me in the Heart played at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill.
Llinas’ fairy tale about Andrea, a nomadic bachelor who falls in love with Carlotta, an adult woman who stopped growing at the age of seven, revealed both physical theatre’s limitations and strengths.
It delights in subverting expectations, in stylising reactions and in overlapping scenes, absurdly.”[10] Art critic Michael Billington pointed out that the plot relies heavily on the passage of time which did not come across in the troupe’s rendering.
[2] The company struck a partnership with screen actor and theatre director Richard Wilson for their production of the Presnyakov Brothers’ black comedy Playing the Victim.
Wilson, known for his sensitive, psychological character-led approach was an unusual pairing for Told By an Idiot, who claim to use scripts rarely, or as Carmichael puts it, "We just jump right in at the deep end and make loads of stuff up.
On paper, the brother’s play, a comedy about a heroine who stars in reconstructions of lurid crimes seemed like a fertile common ground for the physical theatre cohort and the One Foot In The Grave lead.
[11] However, crime writer Ian Rankin, speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight described the production as, “one of the best ensemble pieces I've seen for a long time.”[12] Former poet laureate Carol Anne Duffy collaborated with the company for their fictional account of Giacomo Casanova’s life.
[13] Unlike the original 18th century writer and Italian, Duffy and Told by an Idiot’s protagonist of the same name retained the promiscuity that led historians to revere Casanova.
[17] The company’s first two-hander My Perfect Mind based on Edward Petherbridge’s experience of suffering a stroke whilst preparing to play the lead role in William Shakespeare’s King Lear.
[18] The performance blended autobiographical re-enactments of Petherbridge’s life with recitals from King Lear, theatrical in-jokes and metaphysical posits about old age, and the human mind and body's resilience.