All of Signal to Noise's work is collaboratively created by the actors involved together with the company's director, Chris Goode. Their work varies greatly from piece to piece, but common to most of their work-and certainly to IPE-is a playfulness which allows them to be sensitive to the details of their source material but also able to hold the performance together in an extremely unpredictable and uncontrollable environment like a restaurant.
Il Padrino Express enables Signal To Noise to take their distinctive theatre into a new space, an opportunity, which was jumped at by creative director, Chris Goode. Signal To Noise traditionally confront the way their audience respond to their performance , and the specific challenges experienced in a restaurant, such as the noise levels, waiters, customers wanting to get on with enjoying their meal, made PizzaExpress' approach really enticing. Il Padrino Express will appeal just as much to Godfather novices as devotees - though there will be a number of references in the piece which perhaps only real fans will recognize!
Chris Goode directs the cast, which includes Gemma Brockis, who is a member of the celebrated London theatre group Shunt, and further cast members, Greg McLaren, Tom Lyall and Hilda Eusébio.
Chris Goode
Described by The Guardian as "one of the most exciting talents working in Britain today", Chris Goode is a writer, director and performer, and the founding director of theatre company Signal to Noise. His work has ranged from cabaret and musical comedy, through storytelling, scripted plays and collaboratively devised performance, to the leading edge of experimental theatre and live art.
A two-time winner of the Scotsman Fringe First award (for Neutrino, with Unlimited Theatre, and his solo piece Kiss of Life), Chris first came to prominence with Signal to Noise when their production of The Tempest played in private homes at the Edinburgh fringe in 2000. Chris brings his unique approach to the collaboration with PizzaExpress. The result - Il Padrino Express.
Gemma Brockis
Gemma plays Il Padrino in Il Padrino Express, but the performance is not the first time she has played a male role. A regular contributor to Signal To Noise, she played Napoleon in Napoleon in Exile and has also appeared in The Tempest and Twelfth Night. Gemma is one of the 10 founding members of Shunt collective, a groundbreaking theatre group whose award winning work includes Dance Bear Dance, Tropicana and Amato Saltone.
Greg McLaren
Greg has established himself as one of the most versatile and impressive theatre artists working in London, since studying Art and Drama at Lancaster and East 15 Acting School. Greg has appeared in several Signal To Noise productions and plays Benito in Il Padrino Express. He has won plaudits for his acting roles in The Pink Bits (mapping4d), Napoleon In Exile and Weepie (Signal to Noise), Five In The Morning (Rotozaza) and most recently How To Build A Time Machine. As a writer and director of Lost Pirates (GMPO), Time Machine and Riot Pilot (Hackney Empire), Greg has created his own challenging theatre.
Tom Lyall
Tom Lyall, who plays restaurant manager and Benito in Il Padrino Express, trained at LAMDA and Ecole Philippe Gaulier. He has performed with Shunt in Amato Saltone and The Tennis Show and is an associate artist of Signal to Noise, with whom he has made Weepie, Twelfth Night, The Tempest and The Consolations. He has recently made the short film The Space Between Us, directed by Magali Charrier.
Hilda Eusébio
Hilda Eusébio joins the performance from her native Toronto, via Lisbon. She cut her teeth performing on stage at home in Canada and developed her affinity with absurdist, experimental and physical theatre. Hot stepping from Toronto, via Lisbon where she performed with Ávila Costa's notoriously surreal GTL Theatre Company, she arrived in London to discover the award-winning Mapping4D and has been devising and performing for them since 2002 in such productions as Little English, Vertigo, The Pink Bits and Slender. Hilda plays Don Forchese in Il Padrino Express.
Tamer Hassan
Tamer returns from filming the Ferryman in New Zealand, playing a leading role alongside Jonathon Rhys Davis and Kerri Fox, to appear in Ill Padrino Express.
He was most recently seen on our screens in December in an exclusive Comic Strip playing the lead role in Sex Actually with Rik Mayal and will appear as Hannibal the Great warrior in Hannibal vs. Rome, screened on Channel 5, 9pm November 9th.
Tamer's film career stared in Nick Love's film, The Business, playing the lead role of Charlie. He's appeared alongside an enviable list of actors in films including:
- Unleashed with Bob Hoskins, Jet Li and Oscar winner - Morgan Freeman
- Batman
- 'Layer Cake', directed by Mathew Vaughn, and co-staring with the new James Bond Daniel Craig
- 'John King' novel, Nick Love's 'The Football Factory', playing Millwall Fred.
- Working Title's Calcium Kid with Orlando Bloom
- Ken Stott, Jack Dee and Nick Moran in 'Spivs', playing one of the leads 'Mr Villas'.
Tamer met his agent three years ago, after informing her that, 'Acting is for mugs', with perseverance and hard work, Tamer has graced our Televisions screens, starring in, Eastenders, Casualty, The Bill, Judge John Deed and Granada's huge TV drama, Kill City.
Tamer's roots are from the wrong side of town, having grown up in New Cross and practised his streetwise skills in boxing and Football. Having had an injury in boxing, he turned his talents to running nightclubs, restaurants and is now the proud owner, chairman, coach and player of both Greenwich Borough Football Club and Eltham Boxing Gym, Both of which have produced such talents as Henry Cooper and Ian Wright.
Tamer's charity work for his community is what makes him turn from the 6ft 4 hardman, to absolute putty in the hundreds of children's' hands he deals with on a regular basis.
Fabrizio Caracciolo - costume consultant
Born in the heart of Naples, Fabrizio Caracciolo first break into costume design for Italian TV occurred before he had even reached university. His taste for costume design and consultation prompted him to move to Rome where he was best placed to combine building a career with university. Fabrizio's career has seen him work in throughout Europe - In Prague for Amadeus, Russia for Peter the Great and Budapest for Cyrano di Bergarac - and extensively in America on huge productions such as Titanic and of course The Godfather and The Godfather 2.
London
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