Arturo Brachetti

Watch the Arturo Brachetti interview with the Telegraph

Click here to listen to Arturo’s interview on BBC Midweek (interview commences 3 minutes in)

Arturo Brachetti was born in Turin, Italy in 1957. A multi-talented performer, Brachetti revived the lost art of quick-change, practiced in Italy since the sixteenth century. His ability to metamorphose from one character to another by changing costumes at lightning speed has earned him international fame, and the title of "world's greatest quick-change artist".

As a small child, Brachetti was introduced to magic by a priest during the six years he spent at a seminary. Brachetti was instantly captivated by illusion and spent countless hours honing his skills. Around this time, the priest – Father Mantelli – gave Brachetti a present: a book about Leopoldo Fregoli (1897 – 1936). As a biography, none of Fregoli's secrets were revealed in the book but nevertheless Brachetti began to imagine his own style of quick-change. Brachetti had found his calling. He combined his proficiency in magic and penchant for costuming to create a new career for himself. Brachetti applied modern technology to his techniques, and conceived his own style of performance which created a greater theatrical narrative, and was not just a demonstration of virtuosic skills.

Armed with 6 costumes and ₤30, a 18 year-old Brachetti left for Paris, where he found work at the Paradis Latin cabaret. From France, he went on to Germany where he earned the lead role in André Heller's acclaimed production of Flic Flac. He then proceeded to England, and was nominated for the SWET Award for his starring role in his own production entitled Y. That same year he was requested to perform at The Covent Garden Christmas Gala in the presence of the British Royal Family.

In 1992, Brachetti returned to London to perform in Square Rounds by Tony Harrison at the National Theatre London, and as host of The Best of Magic, a successful series for Thames Television. He was also invited to Disneyland-Paris where he co-hosted the internationally broadcast A Night of Magic for Walt Disney's Buena Vista Productions.

Brachetti currently performs for television, film and theatre, with a repertoire including nearly 350 characters in total. Actor, comedian, illusionist, poet, singer, and dancer, Arturo Brachetti is a theatrical phenomenon. He has mastered and reinvented a lost art; truly qualifying him as the most astounding and original performer in the world. It is this unique and extraordinary ability of not only transforming on stage from one costume to another, but also giving life to his characters that has made him known internationally.

Arturo creates not only characters, but also an atmosphere in which the spectator is transported into a world of surrealistic magic and beauty.

In 1997, Arturo Brachetti stole the show at the Just For Laughs Festival Galas in Montreal, Canada. Founder, Gilbert Rozon, took immediate notice and decided that the ingenious performer should be featured in his very own major production.

In 1999, A Man With A Thousand Faces was born. Seen by over 1 250 000 spectators with over 1 200 performances; in Paris alone, there were 600 sold out performances.

In 2000, A Man With A Thousand Faces starring Arturo Brachetti and produced by Just For Laughs was garnered the Molière Award in Paris (equivalent to Britain's Olivier Award) and Quebec's Olivier Award.

Most notably, in 2008, he created, directed and starred in Gran Varieta, a musical variety show that was the best-selling show touring Italy in 2009. In January 2009 Arturo sold-out his Asian run of A Man with a Thousand Faces, mesmerising Shanghai audiences with his magical performance as part of the Chinese New Year festivities.

Sean Foley: Writer and Director
Sean Foley is an actor, writer and director. A double OLIVIER AWARD WINNER, he co-wrote and starred in THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE (Wyndhams) – Best Comedy 2002, and DO YOU COME HERE OFTEN (Vaudeville) –Best Entertainment 1999. Also TONY AWARD (nomination) 2003 for THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE (Lyceum, Broadway). Also OLIVIER AWARD Best Actor (nomination) 2002, and Best Entertainment (nomination) 2006 for DUCKTASTIC! (Albery).

He co-founded and was co-artistic director of the right size, creating over ten original comedies for the theatre as actor/writer, including the above. Also created and toured nationally and internationally with, BEWILDERNESS (Lyric Hammersmith), STOP CALLING ME VERNON (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wellington Festival and international tour), FLIGHT TO FINLAND (Best Comedy, Lille Festival, 2000), HOLD ME DOWN (Cochrane Theatre and international tour) and PENNY DREADFUL (Theatre Bruges, London International Mime Festival, international tour), QUE SERA (Almeida), THE BATH, and MOOSE (LIMF). He co-wrote THE REMAINS OF FOLEY AND MCCOLL, and, FOLEY AND MCCOLL AGAIN, both for BBC Radio 4, as well as FOLEY AND MCCOLL: THIS WAY UP for BBC 2 (2006).

Other radio includes THE GOLDFISH BOWL, and THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR. Other theatre includes; co-starrring with Mark Rylance in I AM SHAKESPEARE, directed by Matthew Warchus (Chichester Festival Theatre and tour) 2007; Freud in HYSTERIA (Birmingham Repertory Theatre) 2007. Matti in MR PUNTILA AND HIS MAN MATTI (the right size/Almeida Theatre co-production at Ameida and Albery theatres) 2000. Also wrote and performed A LIABILITY, directed by Terry Johnson, for The Royal Court's inaugural Rough Cuts season, 2007. Other film and television includes: People Like Us, The Fitz, (BBC 2), Wild West (BBC 1 - 2 series), Brass Eye (C4), and starring in Karel Riesz's last film, ACT WITHOUT WORDS, part of the BECKETT ON FILM series (C4/RTE - SOUTH BANK SHOW AWARD, BEST DRAMA, 2001)

He directed PINTER'S PEOPLE (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2007), a collection of Harold Pinter's sketches and monologues starring Bill Bailey. JOAN RIVERS: A WORK IN PROGRESS, (Edinburgh Festival and Leicester Square Theatre 2008). Also, THE FULL CONTI for ventriloquist Nina Conti, (BARRY AWARD, Melbourne Festival 2008), and co-writer/director EVOLUTION for Nina Conti, Soho Theatre 2009. Next year he will also direct double act ARMSTRONG AND MILLER in their live show.

Serge Denoncourt: Original Concept
Serge Denoncourt is known as a true man of the theatre with more than 80 productions to his credit. He has explored the great classics: Molière, Corneille, Gorky and the modern repertoire – Botho Strauss, Bertolt Brecht, Howard Barker – with equal interest. Denoncourt is steeped in theatre tradition and known for the visual beauty of his shows, which are typically marked by heightened imagery, vivid use of color and a deep examination of subtext. A versatile artist, Serge also stages operas and even delves into the world of variety shows: He has directed many previous productions by Arturo Brachetti over the last 10 years, developed the artistic and visual concept of a show by the Italian singer Eros Ramazzotti and in 2003 re-mounted the Quebec musical Pied de Poule.The same year he was the acting coach for three episodes of the Cirque du Soleil TV series Solstrom. He is the director and co-writer of Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas production Criss Angel Believe.

Guy LÉvesque: Director of Creation
Guy Lévesque took home the award for best director of the year at the Gala Les Oliviers, for the show by popular Quebec comedian Rachid Badouri. He's received nominations from the entertainment industry for various productions. Since 2001, he's created and directed Just For Laughs Galas. The same year, at the Festival Juste pour rire in Nantes, France, he created the gala hosted by Quebec performing artist Grégory Charles. On TV, from 2006 to 2008, he directed the Gala Artis. Previously, he was director of the sketch comedy show Caméra Café from 2003 to 2005. More recently, he created and directed about 15 episodes of the "Grandes entrevues" series hosted by Stéphan Bureau.

Guillaume Lord: Set Design
With over fifteen years experience, GUILLAUME LORD has created many sets for theatre, dance, circus (Cirque Éloize and Cirque du Soleil), variety (Arturo Brachetti's world tour) and musicals, both in Quebec and abroad. For the theatre, he created the remarkable designs of "Le temps et la chambre" (Masque Award for Best Set and Gascon-Roux Award), "Art", "La grande magia" and "Pacamambo" (an opera for children), among others. Besides working with Canadian renowned directors such as Lorraine Pintal, Claude Poissant, André Brassard and Serge Denoncourt, Guillaume Lord has explored the dance scene with choreographers such as Shann Hounsell (Czech Republic National Theatre) Ginette Laurin, Marie Chouinard and Jean Grand-Maître for whom he designed the sets for the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, Milan's Balletto della Scala, the Stuttgart Opera Ballet, the Munich Opera Ballet, the Norway National Ballet and Alberta Ballet. Guillaume Lord has designed sets for various television talk shows as well as art exhibitions at the Musée du Québec. He has also worked as art director on films and documentaries. He recently designed the set of Cirque du Soleil's first production in Macau entitled Zaia, directed by Gilles Maheu.

Alain Lortie: Lighting Designer
After more than 20 years in the business, Alain Lortie continues to cover a lot of ground both creatively and geographically. He started out working with multi-talented artists such as Michel Lemieux, Marie Chouinard and Edward Lock, and has since collaborated with singing stars from Quebec and Europe such as Jean-Pierre Ferland, Diane Dufresne, Robert Charlebois, Bruno Pelletier, Peter Gabriel, Francis Cabrel, Eros Ramazzotti, etc. A several-time winner of ADISQ's Lighting Designer of The Year award, he has worked with Luc Plamondon on Starmania (1993) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1998). His awards include a Masque Award in 1996 for Best Lignting Design for Les Âmes Mortes with Gilles Maheu and Carbone 14 and a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1997 for François Girard's Œdipus Rex. He has designed the lights for Cirque du Soleil's "Soleil de Minuit" in 2004 and "Delirium" in 2006. His talent has taken him to Asia for productions such as the Shanghai Circus World's 2005 production, ERA, a Carmen musical in Taiepi, in 2006, and the musical entitled Butterflies, in Beijing, in 2007.

FranÇois Barbeau: Costume Designer
François Barbeau has created, to this day, more than 500 designs for Quebec and foreign productions. As teacher at the National Theatre School, he's trained a whole generation of most talented designers. If he's worked for all the Montreal theatres, he also regularly does dance, film and large scale circus production designs. François Barbeau also staged many plays. His professional accomplishments were many a time crowned with prestigious awards and honours. Decorated with the Order of Canada and honoured by the Académie québécoise du théâtre in 2002, François Barbeau has also received the Governor General's Award, in 1996, for his career achievement.

Simon Carpentier: Original Music
A prolific musician and composer, Simon Carpentier has been working on film and television productions, as well as advertising campaigns, since 1987. For the big screen, he created the original scores of the feature films Decoy, Nightwaves and Ladies Room. For television, he composed the music for programmes including Virginie, Metier Policier, Pignon sur rue, Ciel mon Pinard!, Big Wolf on Campus and Vampire High. He's also closely contributed to the albums of a few French-singing artists, including Claude Peloquin and Jean-François Fortier. He's been working on a regular basis with Cirque du Soleil, for the opening show of Quidam, the Bakarat project (London) and the music of the Zumanity show (New York Theatre, Las Vegas), among others. In 2004, he created the music for Arturo Brachetti's new show. Simon Carpentier's work has earned him several awards.

Larsen Lupin: Sound Designer
Larsen Lupin is a duo. Under this moniker several identities are concealed: composer, musician, sound designer, sound engineer. Clues are mostly leading to theatre and dance productions, but they can also be heard in other domains, like cinema, visual arts and fireworks sound design. This active duo worked on a hundred productions over the last fourteen years, like Après la fin, M. Body 7, Moi Chien Créole, Félicité, A Stone's Poem, Under Construction, Blue Heart, Luna, Cette fille-là, Top girls, Tête Première, Le Mystère d'Irma Vep, Howie le Rookie. In 2005, Larsen Lupin brought back in his den a Masque theatre award for the sound design of Everybody's Welles pour tous.

Normand Blais: Prop Designer
Normand has participated in the production of over one hundred plays since completing his studies in Theatre Production at Cégep de St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, in 1987. From the outset, he made a veritable speciality out of his ability to unearth objects resonant with meaning, as well as his legendary attention to detail. In Montreal, Normand is "prop designer in residence" for contemporary theatre troupe La Compagnie Jean Duceppe. Many renowned Quebecois directors have called on Normand to help breathe life into productions that include both classics and original works. His ingenious and pertinent finds contributed to the success of the musical The Man of La Mancha, directed by René Richard Cyr.