Born in Zimbabwe, he trained at Wimbledon School of Art.  He has designed sets and costumes  for operas at Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, La Scala Milan, Maggio Musicale Florence, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Kent Opera, Opera North, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris, Munich, Chicago, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Athens, Bregenz, Amsterdam, Zurich, Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels, Chicago, Houston, Washington, Toronto, St. Petersburg, Venice, Pesaro, Genoa, Turin, Bologna and Rome. He has also designed for the Aldeburgh Festival, Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Royal Court, Almeida and Young Vic. In 1988 he won an Olivier Award for a season of plays at the Old Vic, and for The Lion King he received a Tony Award in 1998.  He is a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI).  In 2003 he won the Gold Medal for set design at the Prague Quadrenniale, and in 2005 he was given an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Surrey. Recent theatre includes: Peter Gynt, Common (National); The Nutcracker (American Ballet Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (National Ballet of Canada); Le Coq D’or, La Bayadere and Raymonda (Royal Danish Ballet); Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Teatro Massimo, Palermo); Versailles (Donmar Warehouse); La Traviata (Grange Park); The Sleeping Beauty (Amercian Ballet Theatre at The Metropolitan Opera/La Scala, Milan); Morgen und Abend (Royal Opera House/Deutsche Oper); Romeo and Juliet (Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow); Wake (Birmingham Opera Company); The Outsider (The Print Room); and costumes for Yumé (Opera de Reims); Peter Grimes (Opera de Lyon); and Asters (New National Opera of Japan); and the sets for Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard (Wyndham’s Theatre, London).