"Chris Goode has been described as British theatre's greatest maverick talent. But don't be put off: his work as a director, writer and actor is much more enticing than that label suggests..." - Independent on Sunday
Photo: Malcolm Phillips
Chris Goode is a theatre maker, poet and occasional musician, who has been described as "one of the most exciting talents working in Britain today" (The Guardian), and as "an extremely highly regarded alternative theatre maker" (Caroline McGinn, Theatre editor, Time Out).
Born in Bristol in 1973, and a graduate of the University of Cambridge, Chris’s early work was as a playwright, with productions including Kissing Bingo (1994) and Weepie (1997) winning critical praise on the Edinburgh and London fringes.
By the late 90s, however, his interests had shifted decisively towards devised and collaboratively-made exploratory work, and in 1999 he launched his company, Signal to Noise, with a large-scale dance-theatre piece, The Consolations, at the Place Theatre. Signal to Noise is perhaps best known for a series of intimate performances designed for audiences’ own homes, beginning with an ecstatically received adaptation of The Tempest (2000) and more recently including Homemade (2005), a Nottinghamshire STAGES commission for the Harley Gallery, Welbeck; We Must Perform A Quirkafleeg! (2006) for the Cork Midsummer Festival; and At Home (2008) for Threshold in Canterbury.
Chris was artistic director of
Camden People’s Theatre between 2001-04. His work at CPT included the company’s first touring production,
Napoleon in Exile (2002) for the Traverse, Edinburgh, and the Drill Hall, London;
Past the Line Between the Land (2003) at CPT; and
Escapology (2004), which was later seen at the Newbury Comedy Festival. During the same period, Chris was also an associate artist with Unlimited Theatre, collaborating on their internationally acclaimed
Neutrino (2001), and on a number of other pieces including
Scream If You Want To Go Faster (2000) for the British Festival of Visual Theatre at BAC, and
Could It Be Magic? (2003) for Sheffield Theatres.
Other significant partnerships are with the performance artist Theron Schmidt, on pieces such as Puckerlips (1997), his horses (2003), and Silverlake (2005); and with the writer/performer Harold Finley, for whom he has directed the solos True Stories (2005) and Rhymes, Reasons and Bomb-Ass Beats (2006).
His own solo pieces include the award-winning
Kiss of Life (2002), which was seen at the Drill Hall and more recently at Sydney Opera House as part of the Sydney International Festival 2007;
Nine Days Crazy (2004), a Drill Hall commission;
Yeah Boom! – A Christopher Knowles Reader (2006) at CPT;
Hippo World Guest Book (2007), which was created for the Artsadmin Summer Season and shortlisted for the Total Theatre Award for Experimentation; and
The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley for Queer Up North (2009).
A new partnership with performance artist
Jonny Liron has led to a series of more experimental pieces including
Hey Mathew (2008) for Development Lab at Theatre in the Mill, Bradford;
Recovery (2009), with Jeremy Hardingham, at the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Cambridge; and
Language Thinks Language (2009).
Other recent work has included Longwave (2006), a Signal to Noise co-production with New Greenham Arts, which toured to the Lyric Studio, Hammersmith and the British Council Edinburgh showcase 2007; Glass House for Deloitte Ignite '09 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; and two new plays for the Drum Theatre Plymouth: Speed Death of the Radiant Child (2007), and the TMA award-nominated King Pelican (2009).
Chris is currently an Artsadmin Associate Artist, and an Associate Researcher at Rose Bruford College. He has taught and lectured widely. He is a frequent contributor to Total Theatre magazine and he blogs at Thompson's Bank of Communicable Desire.
As a poet he has published three chapbooks with Barque Press, most recently No Son House (2004), and was one of the four poets whose work was featured in a special British Poetry issue of Chicago Review (2007). Readings have included Cambridge Poetry Summit, Sub Voicive Poetry, Crossing the Line, La Langoustine est Mort, Openned, and several appearances at the Klinker. Crtical work includes substantial pieces for Edinburgh Review and The Gig, and an essay in the Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk.
As a musician he has performed in free improvisation contexts with Susanna Ferrar, Hugh Metcalfe and others, and in the duo COAT with Jeremy Hardingham, releasing the album
Copy Of (which has recently been reissued for download from
). As a sound artist he has created the soundscores for most of his own theatre works and for pieces by installation artist Emily Orley and theatre companies Petra's Pulse and Unlimited Theatre.
