Cheek by Jowl was established in 1981 by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod.

Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod met at Cambridge University in the mid 1970s. Subsequently they worked together on various productions on the London Fringe, at the Arts Educational Drama School, and for the Young Activists at the Royal Court.

In 1981 they formed Cheek by Jowl. The company's manifesto was to re-examine classical texts, avoiding directorial and design concepts, and to focus on the actor's art. Its first production to tour was Wycherley's The Country Wife presented at the Edinburgh Festival and supported by a small Arts Council grant.

Before long the company received its first official invitations to perform abroad, taking their productions of Vanity Fair and Pericles to the festivals of Almagro, Valladolid and Jerusalem in 1984. These productions were also invited to perform in London at the Donmar Warehouse. This was to be the start of a long and fruitful collaboration with that theatre.

For that first London season Cheek by Jowl won the Laurence Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 1986. Over half of the company's plays receiving Olivier awards. The company grew rapidly throughout the 1980s — creating 18 productions in ten years, touring across five continents and giving over 1,500 performances. The tours were supported by the Arts Council and the British Council.

The core of the repertoire has always been Shakespeare, by the time of Troilus and Cressida in 2008 Cheek By Jowl will have presented no fewer than 13 of Shakespeare's plays. Another principle of the company was to present major European classics in translation. To date Cheek by Jowl has given the British premières of 10 European classics including The Cid by Corneille and Andromache by Racine, over three hundred years since they were first presented in Paris.

By 1990, The Independent could say that, "If there is one company to have influenced British theatre in the 1980s, it is Cheek by Jowl". City Limits described Donnellan and Ormerod as, "the most exciting partnership in British Theatre", and the playwright David Edgar spoke of British theatre in a, "post Cheek by Jowl era".

Russia.

In 1986 Donnellan and Ormerod first visited Russia, when Lev Dodin invited them to Leningrad to see his company perform at the Maly Drama Theatre. Since then a close relationship developed, with the two companies regularly performing together at the same international festivals. In 1997, Donnellan and Ormerod directed and designed THE WINTERS TALE for the Maly, the first Shakespeare production performed by that company.

Meanwhile the Russian Theatre Confederation had invited Cheek by Jowl to Moscow as a part of the Chekhov International Theatre Festival. Measure for Measure was performed at the Moscow Arts Theatre to great acclaim and the company was invited back the same year to perform As You Like It. This was followed closely by Russian tours of The Duchess of Malfi and Much Ado About Nothing. This intense relationship between Cheek by Jowl and Russia culminated in 1999, when the Chekhov International Theatre Festival, under the leadership of Valery Shadrin, commissioned Donnellan and Ormerod to form their own company of Russian actors in Moscow.

This sister company performs in Russia and internationally and its current repertoire includes BORIS GODUNOV by Pushkin, TWELFTH NIGHT and THREE SISTERS by Anton Chekov. In 2010, the Chekhov International Festival will produce their fourth production with Donnellan and Ormerod, a new production of THE TEMPEST which Cheek by Jowl will bring to the UK in spring 2011.

In 2003 the Bolshoi invited the Cheek By Jowl team to stage a new version of the ballet of ROMEO AND JULIET by Prokofief. All five of Ormerod and Donnellan's Russian productions are still being performed in Russia.

In 2002 the Cheek by Jowl team presented the premiere of HOMEBODY/KABUL in the United States for the New York Theatre Workshop and at the Young Vic in London and in Barcelona for Cheek by Jowl. This was Tony Kushner's first major play since ANGELS IN AMERICA which Donnellan and Ormerod had earlier produced at the National Theatre.

With 2004's production of Othello, Cheek by Jowl embarked upon its most ambitious tour yet encompassing five continents, fourteen countries and 169 performances.

Cheek by Jowl has been Artistic Associate at the Barbican Centre, London since 2006. With co-production support from the Barbican and foreign partners, and funding from Arts Council England Cheek by Jowl has produced and toured new English language productions of The Changeling, Cymbeline, Trolius and Cressida, and is currently touring Macbeth. In addition, Cheek by Jowl has presented work by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod's Russian ensemble in the UK and their recent French language show Andromaque, co-produced by Peter Brook's Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris.