Anthony Lo-Giudice: 'I moved from Palermo to a council estate in Middlesbrough - it was a culture shock'

He returns to York Minster with his company and his latest work, The Guest, which has been developed in collaboration with northern communities.

I’m currently reading

Thinking back, I don’t really remember any books as a little lad growing up in Palermo. Perhaps there were, but they certainly didn’t make any great impression on me. The only ones that did were Bible tales, about Moses making the waters of the Red Sea split in half, and of Noah’s Ark.

It was only when we arrived in the UK, and I started to go to school, that stories began to play a part in my life, and they were aural tales, because a really lovely master we had at school was terrific at spinning yarns about ghoulies and ghosties and things that went bump in the night, rather exciting Halloween stuff, and they were great adventures, but very much “off script”.

Because one day, one of my classmates must have gone home and spilt the beans, and everything came to an abrupt end – his parents certainly didn’t approve. It was back onto the approved storytelling again.

The teacher must have realised how sad I was at the end of this sideline of stories, and he took me to one side and quietly recommended me to that series of Horrible History books, and I was hooked. What is it about young people that makes them love the gruesome?

I enjoyed the darker side, and, in a lot of ways, I believe that helped me to understand what I believed in and what made me.

Looking back, it was a challenging time for me. I was very much the outsider, because I spoke Italian and I’d travelled from a nice, warm, green place, beautiful countryside, to a council estate on Teesside.

Now that’s a culture shock. But I adapted, I survived – children are, by and large, extraordinarily resilient.

I’ve been listening to

Soundtracks. Just about anything by Jean Luc Goddard, Sally Potter’s Orlando, things like that. Britney Spears’ Blackout, from 2007, is another favourite. Then there’s a lot of Radio 4, but I switch off when I get to the news, because most of the headlines, the political ones, are too depressing.

On TV, I’ve been watching

I love a good documentary, and especially if it has anything to do with Icelandic history or Viking stories.

Those sprawling epics really get me and draw me in to the point where nothing going on around me means very much at all.

The fact that they are all about national identity makes them all the more intriguing and beguiling. To the surprise of some audiences, we use a little Olde English in this current show.

The live performance I’d recommend is

Anything, at any time or in any venue, by the incomparable Pina Bausch – and, if I must be specific, her version of Stravinsky’s masterpiece, The Rite of Spring. Simply breathtaking.

And I never miss a performance when the Royal Northern Sinfonia are booked to play the live accompaniment to Hitchcock’s classic, Psycho.

Brilliant, that shower scene has never been played better. I saw it at The Glasshouse in Gateshead, and I was blown away.

My next boxed set or streamed series will be (or was….)

Please send me The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Agatha All Along. Every single frame of every episode. Seasonal witchery and autumnal magic.

The App I couldn’t be without is

Pinterest, and all of its design applications – in a fantasy world, I am currently designing my own castle (why start small?), every tower and turret of it, every battlement and banqueting space. I know, I know, but it is one way to let my imagination blow off some steam in another direction.

What is right at the top of your “To do” Bucket list?

To keep on travelling and creating, and to return, time and time again, to Iceland. Such a starkly beautiful, forbidding yet mystical and magical country.

I’ve often wondered why a lad with half Italian blood should be in love with somewhere so cold, halfway across the world. Isn’t that odd?

But, at the very top of this list is to meet the wonderful Kate Bush, whom I have adored since I first heard her sing and perform, Wuthering Heights.

And that in turn makes me delve more into the histories and the writings of the Brontë family, and I’d love to be able to roam the streets of Howarth and to visit the Parsonage.

There are so many things other than those superb novels – did you know that Emily wrote a set of poems called The Night is Darkening Round Me? Wonderful verses.

The Guest, York Minister, October 9. Tickets: yorkminster.org. In 2026, The Guest will have additional performances in Bradford.