Born into a Russian Jewish emigre family in London, Peter Brook was always fascinated by theatre. In the 1950s he veered between the West End, new work from France and opera at Covent Garden. By the 1960s he was moving towards greater experimentation, with controversial works like Marat/Sade and the Vietnam-protest show US, films like Lord of the Flies and King Lear, and landmark stagings of Shakespeare of which the most famous was the 'white box' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Then in 1970, at the height of his success, he moved to Paris and immediately set off with a group of actors to Persia (with Ted Hughes), Africa, Mexico and the USA in an attempt to discover a universial language of theatre. Back in Paris, the fruits of this journey spilled out onto the stage at the Bouffes du Nord in a series of visually spectacular, innovative shows including The Ik and The Conference of the Birds and ultimately the epic production of The Mahabarata. Since then, Brook has gone on pushing at the boundaries of theatre and film.

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