Biografia
Born David Cain Haughton in Cork, Ireland, he graduated from Cambridge before working in London with a theatre group he founded during university. In late 1973, he began attending Lindsay Kemp's classes at London's Dance Centre and soon joined the cast of the first London performance of "Flowers" at the Bush Theatre, playing the Archangel Gabriel. This marked the beginning of his collaboration with Kemp and his company as they rapidly gained success.
As the company started touring internationally, he increasingly contributed to its organization and artistic direction. For a decade, he worked full-time with Kemp, performing in all productions and assisting with the conception, dramaturgy, direction of new shows, and company management. Throughout this period, he served as Kemp’s collaborator and companion, performer, director's assistant, dramaturge, writer, Co-Director, and organizer of the Lindsay Kemp Company. Since 2002, he has been responsible for the lighting design of all Kemp’s projects.
From 1982 onward, while continuing to collaborate on Kemp’s new productions—including those outside the Kemp Company such as dance or opera—he began pursuing his own projects, settling in Paris (where he worked with Maguy Marin) and Rome. In Italy, he established a career as a film actor under the stage name David Brandon to simplify his complex surname. From 1982 to the present, he has appeared in leading and supporting roles in approximately 100 Italian and international films.
Simultaneously, he directed, designed, and lit numerous Italian theatre productions, including three Shakespeare adaptations for the Viterbo Festival; productions of The Bacchae, Waiting for Godot, and his own play Rehearsing Freedom, all performed with inmates at Rome’s Rebibbia prison; three award-winning plays by Maurizio Donadoni; and four musicals adapted and directed for Rome’s Teatro Nazionale, produced by the Teatro dell'Opera. In 2012, he directed Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera for theatres in Livorno, Pisa, and Lucca.
He has also frequently worked as a voice artist, providing dubbing and voice-over services, and as a writer, publishing two poetry collections, two librettos for contemporary operas composed by Maurizio Squillante, two books on Lindsay Kemp’s life and art, and extensive material on Kemp and his works. Additionally, he is a prolific translator.
