Bulgakov in Avignon

By Sheila Johnston

The Avignon Theatre Festival is often said to be like Edinburgh, only with sun and better food. Not according to Simon McBurney, the actor, director and founder of Complicite theatre company. "The origins of Edinburgh are linked to a pomp and ceremony – the Tattoo in the Castle," he says. "Whereas in Avignon the schism of the Catholic church took place and it was a centre of the Resistance during the war. So it is a highly symbolic act to create something there."

McBurney is re-creating his adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s subversive novel "The Master and Margarita", seen this spring at the Barbican. He expects a sophisticated reception. "In English we call people who go to the theatre the 'audience', the people who listen," he notes. "In France, they call them the 'spectateurs'. Visual literacy there is astonishingly high, much higher than in Britain."