Simon McBurney

Simon McBurney is one of those rare theatre artists who genuinely makes you rethink what a stage can do. As the founder and driving force behind Complicité, he has spent decades turning spare, physically alive performance into some of the most intellectually thrilling work in contemporary theatre — productions like The Encounter or Mnemonic aren't just shows, they're experiences that linger for years. What I find remarkable is how he moves between worlds: a haunting presence in films like The Last King of Scotland and Harry Potter, yet clearly most at home dismantling theatrical convention. The Laurence Olivier Award, the OBE, the 1997 Europe Theatre Prize — the establishment keeps recognising him, and honestly they should. Born in Cambridge, educated at Peterhouse and trained at the Lecoq school, he somehow became the restless European avant-garde's most essential English voice.

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Name (English)

Simon McBurney

Name (Japanese)

サイモン・マクバーニー

Reading

さいもん・まくばーにー

Born

August 25, 1957 (age 69)

Origin

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Occupation

theatre director / actor / screenwriter / film producer / playwright

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Rooster

University

King's College School

Awards & achievements

• Laurence Olivier Awards
• Officer of the Order of the British Empire
• 2008 Konrad Wolf Prize
• 1997 Europe Theatre Prize

• Official sitehttp://www.complicite.org/flash/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%20McBurney
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AF%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q705602

Tags

• theatre director
• actor
• screenwriter

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.