Biography

Albert Boadella Oncins (born 30 July 1943, in Barcelona) is a Spanish actor and playwright. Until 2012,he was the director of the Els Joglars theatre company. He studied dramatic art at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, at the Centre Dramatique de l'Est (Strasbourg) and corporal expression in Paris. While still a student he was part of the mime artist company of Italo Riccardi.

In 1962, when he was only 19 years old, he founded in Barcelona, together with his colleagues Carlota Soldevila and Anton Font, Els Joglars, the company in which he developed his entire career as an actor, director and playwright. With Els Joglars has more than thirty plays. His works tend to have a strong critical and satirical charge, especially with the established power and with any factual power, especially the Catholic Church. That is why he has suffered problems with political authorities of different sign.

His first major problem with the authorities took place on 2 December 1977. By La Torna, a satire of the process to Heinz Chez, was imprisoned to be subjected to a court-martial for an alleged offense of insulting the Army. The day before the hearing he staged a spectacular escape from prison and took refuge in France.

Back in Spain, he continued to create controversy with works such as Teledeum, Ubú president, acid criticism of Jordi Pujol, or Dalí.

Apart from his theatrical curriculum, he has created and directed several television programs for different networks, and is the author of the books El Rapto de Talía [The kidnapping of Talía] (DeBolsillo, 2000) and the memoir Memorias de un bufón [Memoirs of a Jester] (Espasa Calpe, 2001).

In 2003 he wrote the screenplay and directed the film Buen viaje, excelencia, a caricature of the last months of life of the general Franco.

A great fan of bullfighting, and public defender of the art of cúchares, Boadella has frequently placed the emotion of the bullfighting ritual above the rest of the arts. In December 2006, he premiered a small format work in Madrid, in the same way as medieval debates, entitled Controversy of the bull and the bullfighter, where reasons for and against the tradition alternate. His support for bullfighting has earned him the admiration of important figures of bullfighting as José Tomás and Enrique Ponce, as acerbic critics by anti-bullfighting sectors. In his memoirs, Boadella takes the latter with sportsmanship:

No one has insulted me with more pleasure, viciousness and fanaticism than those who practice anti-bullfighting with their beatific antiviolent mask. But [...] the more pressure they deploy, the same as the Christians of Ancient Rome, more vigor and sense will acquire the bullfighting. Some popes and even powerful monarchs tried to finish with the bulls. The result is clear: there is a growing number of farms and it is better bullfought

In September 2007 his essay of memories Goodbye Catalonia. Chronicles of love and war won the 24th Premio Espasa de Ensayo awards. At the presentation of the book, he explained that his goodbye to Catalonia was not metaphorical, but real: he announced that he would not work again more in Catalonia before the boycott suffered by his works in his own land.Since 2009, as announced in September 2008, following the Government's offer of the Community of Madrid, he was the artistic director of the Teatros del Canal.On 11 September 2012 he announced the transfer of the management of the company Els Joglars to Ramon Fontserè. The announcement was made during the presentation of the 2012-13 season of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, with which Els Joglars has produced Miguel de Cervantes' play The Dialogue of the Dogs (El coloquio de los perros)In December 2012 he was awarded the Alfonso Ussía awards in the category of Person of the Year, together with Arturo Fernández.During 2017 he received the 20th Pepe Isbert National Theater Awards granted by Amigos de los Teatros Históricos de España (Friends of the Historical Theaters of Spain) (AMIThE) and the 13th "Joaquín Vidal" national university awards in bullfighting, awarded by the Círculo Taurino Universitario Don Luis Mazzantini.