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Ken Campbell (actor)
Encyclopedia
Kenneth Victor Campbell (10 December 1941 – 31 August 2008) was an English writer, actor, director and comedian
known for his work in experimental theatre
. He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre."
Campbell achieved notoriety in the 1970s for his nine-hour adaptation of the science-fiction trilogy Illuminatus! and his 22-hour staging of Neil Oram's play cycle The Warp. The Guinness Book of Records
listed the latter as the longest play in the world.
The Independent
said that, "In the 1990s, through a series of sprawling monologues packed with arcane information and freakish speculations on the nature of reality, he became something approaching a grand old man of the fringe, though without ever discarding his inner enfant terrible." The Times
labelled Campbell a one-man whirlwind of comic and surreal performance.
The Guardian
, in a posthumous tribute, judged him to be "one of the most original and unclassifiable talents in the British theatre of the past half-century. A genius at producing shows on a shoestring and honing the improvisational capabilities of the actors who were brave enough to work with him." The artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman
and Playhouse
said, "He was the door through which many hundreds of kindred souls entered a madder, braver, brighter, funnier and more complex universe."
, Essex
, the son of Elsie (née
Handley) and Anthony Colin Campbell, who was a telegrapher. He staged his first performances in the bathroom of his childhood home: "I was three years old and helped by my invisible friend, Peter Jelp, I put on shows for the characters in the linoleum."
He was educated at Chigwell School
and then studied drama at RADA
before joining Colchester
Repertory theatre as an understudy
to Warren Mitchell
. In 1967 he became resident dramatist and acting company member at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent. He soon began writing and directing his own productions, including working with director Lindsay Anderson
. After seeing the American Living Theatre at The Roundhouse in the early 1970s he was inspired to found The Ken Campbell Roadshow, a small theatre group that performed in unconventional venues such as pubs. Members included Bob Hoskins
and Sylvester McCoy
. Campbell was invited by John Cleese
to appear with his Roadshow team in the first Secret Policeman's Ball
in June 1979.
In 1976, he and Chris Langham
formed the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool in order to stage Illuminatus
, a nine-hour cycle of five plays by himself and Langham based on the cult trilogy of avowedly anarchist science fantasy novels of the same name by Robert Shea
and Robert Anton Wilson
. Starring Campbell and Langham themselves, the production featured Neil Cunningham, David Rappaport
, Jim Broadbent
, Bill Nighy
and Campbell's future wife Prunella Gee
. It later moved to the National Theatre
, where it opened the new Cottesloe Theatre in 1977.
Sir Peter Hall, director of the National at the time, writes of Campbell in his Diaries, "He is a total anarchist and impossible to pin down. He more or less said it was a crime to be serious."
The Warp, based on the real life experiences and adventures of author Neil Oram, is a dizzying trek through the nether reaches of gurudom and tireless post-sixties mind-expansion, directed by Ken Campbell, and opened at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts
in January 1979. It was spawned by the encounter between Oram and Campbell after Oram gave his acclaimed performance as raconteur at the ICA. Campbell commissioned the cycle of ten plays after hearing Oram. The cycle's inordinate length when (as was intended to be possible) it is played together, 22 hours, rendered the 9-hour Illuminatus! a mere bagatelle by comparison. For the first two weeks the performances were of one play per night, after which the impetus for a marathon performance, a real challenge to actors and audience, became irresistible. The success of this remarkable effort by all concerned led to three full marathon performances at the ICA. Five marathon performances followed at the Roundhouse in London in November 1979 also directed by Ken. Probably the most remarkable, and in terms of the ethos of the author and the work, the most attractive event in this episode was the five marathons that were performed, against the wishes of an army of local officialdom, during a squat of the Regent Theatre in Edinburgh during the Festival of 1979. The Scottish audiences were as enthusiastic as the London crowd. After one performance at Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, a further performance was given at Liverpool Everyman Theatre in a ten week run from 29 Sept – 6 December 1980. Cult status was established giving some credence to the publicity material - "The world may soon divide into those who have been through THE WARP and those who have not" More recently the cycle was revived in the 1990s in a production directed by Campbell's daughter Daisy.
In May 1979, again at the ICA, the company presented the first stage version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
. One eye-popping aspect of the production was that for each set change the entire audience was wafted 1/2000th-of-an-inch above the floor aboard an industrial hovercraft
. The cast cavorted on various ledges and platforms. The craft's carrying capacity meant that audiences were limited to a maximum of eighty each night. Langham was Arthur Dent
, and narration of The Book was split between two usherettes. The problem of how to portray Zaphod Beeblebrox
, the Betelgeusian blessed with three arms and two heads - not an issue in the original radio series - was assailed in typical Campbell fashion by simply (or not so simply) putting two actors inside one large costume.
Audience-carrying capacity was not a problem at London's vast Rainbow Theatre where Campbell mounted a yet more grandiose version of The Hitchhiker's Guide in July 1980. The venue had been renovated in the 1970s to take rock operas. Some reviewers, who in general did not greet the show favourably, labelled it a musical, since it now came with incidental music and audacious laser effects. It ran for over three hours and, despite attempts to shorten the script, was forced to close some four weeks early, in the process losing a lot of money.
For a year, 1980–1981, Campbell was artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman Theatre
. From 1984, he made repeated efforts to adapt for the stage VALIS
, the largely autobiographical cult science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick
, but to the disappointment of fans, these efforts came to nothing.
banned its overseas sale, since it was deemed to have portrayed Britain's police and criminal justice system in such a wholly unfavourable light.
He played Alf Garnett's neighbour Fred Johnson in the half-dozen series of the 1980s sitcom In Sickness and in Health
, which had the effect of cementing his career-long friendship with Warren Mitchell.
Campbell in 1987 unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of the seventh doctor
in Doctor Who
. He was beaten to the role by his old protegé Sylvester McCoy. The then script editor
, Andrew Cartmel
, later revealed that Campbell's interpretation had been considered "too dark" to put on television. Other roles included that of the irritating Roger in The Anniversary
episode of Fawlty Towers
and the buck toothed antiques blackmailer Ted Goat in a 1993 episode of Lovejoy.
Campbell's radio career included playing Poodoo in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
, a part specifically written for him. The Radio 3
literary programme The Verb included Campbell as a regular contributor; in such spots as Campbell's Book Soup he became an upturner of bibliographic rocks, revealing unconsidered trifles to the hilarity of fellow contributors.
His film work included Ken Loach's Poor Cow, Derek Jarman
's The Tempest (1979), Breaking Glass
(1980), Chris Bernard
's Letter to Brezhnev
(1985), Peter Greenaway
's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985), Saving Grace
(2000) and Creep
(2004).
In the final years of his life Campbell suddenly found himself cast in a whole new TV role: that of doggedly curious sceptic called upon to probe the outer realms of particle physics
and cognitive science
on behalf of the casual viewer, particularly where the science bordered on the paranormal
. Campbell's idiosyncratic presentation in Brainspotting, Reality On the Rocks and Six Experiments that Changed the World, each made for Channel 4
, owed much to the influence of one of his heroes, the American iconoclast Charles Fort
. Campbell became a star turn at the annual Fortean Times
convention, UnCon.
, ontological
speculation and popular-science rant. They include Recollections of a Furtive Nudist, Jamais Vu, Mystery Bruises, The History of Comedy Part One: Ventriloquism
and Pigspurt. Several were published by Methuen. He toured them worldwide.
Three of his one-man shows, what became known as The Bald Trilogy, were first commissioned by the National's director Trevor Nunn
. This was despite the fact that some years earlier, when Nunn was boss of the Royal Shakespeare Company
, the two had fallen out spectacularly. Campbell had carefully concocted a press release and a string of personal letters complete with forged signature: Nunn appeared to be announcing that henceforth, as a consequence of the huge success of its recent adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, the Royal Shakespeare Company would be changing its name to the Royal Dickens
Company. Several grandees of the English theatre had been taken in by the hoax. Only when an exasperated Nunn called in Scotland Yard
did Campbell finally own up.
In 1999, Campbell starred with Warren Mitchell
and John Fortune
in Art
in London's West End.
In 2001 Campbell staged a version of Macbeth
in pidgin
English. It was the big gun in his campaign to get Bislama, first language of 6,000 inhabitants of the South Pacific
islands of Vanuatu, formally adopted as a world language (wol wantok). The virtue of Bislama was that with a bit of determination you could pick it up in an afternoon. Campbell argued that, in certain respects, Macbeth in pidgin was better than the original. If nothing else, the campaign had the effect of bringing to a wider public the Bislama for Prince Philip
: "Nambawan bigfala emi blong Misis Kwin" (Number one big fellow him belong Mrs Queen).
With Alan Moore
, Bill Drummond
, Mixmaster Morris
and Coldcut
, he appeared at the Royal Festival Hall
in 2007 in a memorial tribute to Robert Anton Wilson
, co-author of the Illuminatus! novels.
In July 2008 Staffordshire University
awarded Campbell an honorary doctorate
, labelling him one of Staffordshire's "greatest living success stories", a reference to his time as artist in residence
in 1967 at Stoke-on-Trent
's Victoria Theatre.
Campbell appeared on 6 September 2009, over a year after his death, in the first of a new series of Marple
on ITV
. He played Crump; his wife was played by the late Wendy Richard
.
in 1978, and they had a daughter, Daisy. They later divorced but remained close friends. Campbell lived at Loughton
adjacent to Epping Forest
in a nineteenth century Swiss chalet. His funeral, a woodland burial in Epping Forest
, was attended by a distinguished roll of guests with whom he had worked in the theatre.
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
known for his work in experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
. He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre."
Campbell achieved notoriety in the 1970s for his nine-hour adaptation of the science-fiction trilogy Illuminatus! and his 22-hour staging of Neil Oram's play cycle The Warp. The Guinness Book of Records
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
listed the latter as the longest play in the world.
The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
said that, "In the 1990s, through a series of sprawling monologues packed with arcane information and freakish speculations on the nature of reality, he became something approaching a grand old man of the fringe, though without ever discarding his inner enfant terrible." The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
labelled Campbell a one-man whirlwind of comic and surreal performance.
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, in a posthumous tribute, judged him to be "one of the most original and unclassifiable talents in the British theatre of the past half-century. A genius at producing shows on a shoestring and honing the improvisational capabilities of the actors who were brave enough to work with him." The artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman
Everyman Theatre
The Everyman Theatre stands at the north end of Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Established in 1964 in a former cinema, it encouraged local talent and played a part in the development of new artistes and writers. The theatre was rebuilt between 1975 and 1977, and was closed again for...
and Playhouse
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
said, "He was the door through which many hundreds of kindred souls entered a madder, braver, brighter, funnier and more complex universe."
Early life and career
Campbell was born in IlfordIlford
Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, the son of Elsie (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Handley) and Anthony Colin Campbell, who was a telegrapher. He staged his first performances in the bathroom of his childhood home: "I was three years old and helped by my invisible friend, Peter Jelp, I put on shows for the characters in the linoleum."
He was educated at Chigwell School
Chigwell School
Chigwell School is an English co-educational independent school/public school in Chigwell, in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It was founded in 1629 by Samuel Harsnett, a former Archbishop of York . There are around 730 pupils aged between 7 and 18 years...
and then studied drama at RADA
Rada
Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....
before joining Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
Repertory theatre as an understudy
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...
to Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part , and its sequels Till Death... and In Sickness and in Health , all of which were written by Johnny Speight...
. In 1967 he became resident dramatist and acting company member at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent. He soon began writing and directing his own productions, including working with director Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
. After seeing the American Living Theatre at The Roundhouse in the early 1970s he was inspired to found The Ken Campbell Roadshow, a small theatre group that performed in unconventional venues such as pubs. Members included Bob Hoskins
Bob Hoskins
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
and Sylvester McCoy
Sylvester McCoy
Sylvester McCoy is a Scottish actor. As a comic act and busker he appeared regularly on stage and on BBC Children's television in the 1970s and 80s, but is best known for playing the seventh incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1987 to...
. Campbell was invited by John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
to appear with his Roadshow team in the first Secret Policeman's Ball
The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)
The Secret Policeman's Ball took place over four consecutive nights in London in June 1979. It was a successor to the 1976 show A Poke In The Eye and the 1977 show The Mermaid Frolics.The show was directed by Monty Python alumnus John Cleese and producers Martin Lewis and Peter Walker...
in June 1979.
Theatre director and playwright
Chris Langham
Christopher "Chris" Langham is an English writer, actor and comedian. He is most famous for playing MP Hugh Abbot in BBC Four sitcom The Thick of It and as presenter Roy Mallard in People Like Us, first on BBC Radio 4 and later on its transfer to television on BBC Two, where Mallard is almost...
formed the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool in order to stage Illuminatus
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magick-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both...
, a nine-hour cycle of five plays by himself and Langham based on the cult trilogy of avowedly anarchist science fantasy novels of the same name by Robert Shea
Robert Shea
Robert Joseph Shea was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy Illuminatus!. It became a cult success and was later turned into a marathon-length stage show put on at the British National Theatre and elsewhere. In...
and Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
. Starring Campbell and Langham themselves, the production featured Neil Cunningham, David Rappaport
David Rappaport
David Stephen Rappaport was an English actor, probably one of the best known dwarf actors in television and film...
, Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
, Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
and Campbell's future wife Prunella Gee
Prunella Gee
Prunella Gee is an English actress.She studied at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art where she won the Spotlight Award for Best Actress...
. It later moved to the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, where it opened the new Cottesloe Theatre in 1977.
Sir Peter Hall, director of the National at the time, writes of Campbell in his Diaries, "He is a total anarchist and impossible to pin down. He more or less said it was a crime to be serious."
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in January 1979. It was spawned by the encounter between Oram and Campbell after Oram gave his acclaimed performance as raconteur at the ICA. Campbell commissioned the cycle of ten plays after hearing Oram. The cycle's inordinate length when (as was intended to be possible) it is played together, 22 hours, rendered the 9-hour Illuminatus! a mere bagatelle by comparison. For the first two weeks the performances were of one play per night, after which the impetus for a marathon performance, a real challenge to actors and audience, became irresistible. The success of this remarkable effort by all concerned led to three full marathon performances at the ICA. Five marathon performances followed at the Roundhouse in London in November 1979 also directed by Ken. Probably the most remarkable, and in terms of the ethos of the author and the work, the most attractive event in this episode was the five marathons that were performed, against the wishes of an army of local officialdom, during a squat of the Regent Theatre in Edinburgh during the Festival of 1979. The Scottish audiences were as enthusiastic as the London crowd. After one performance at Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, a further performance was given at Liverpool Everyman Theatre in a ten week run from 29 Sept – 6 December 1980. Cult status was established giving some credence to the publicity material - "The world may soon divide into those who have been through THE WARP and those who have not" More recently the cycle was revived in the 1990s in a production directed by Campbell's daughter Daisy.
In May 1979, again at the ICA, the company presented the first stage version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
. One eye-popping aspect of the production was that for each set change the entire audience was wafted 1/2000th-of-an-inch above the floor aboard an industrial hovercraft
Hovercraft
A hovercraft is a craft capable of traveling over surfaces while supported by a cushion of slow moving, high-pressure air which is ejected against the surface below and contained within a "skirt." Although supported by air, a hovercraft is not considered an aircraft.Hovercraft are used throughout...
. The cast cavorted on various ledges and platforms. The craft's carrying capacity meant that audiences were limited to a maximum of eighty each night. Langham was Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....
, and narration of The Book was split between two usherettes. The problem of how to portray Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....
, the Betelgeusian blessed with three arms and two heads - not an issue in the original radio series - was assailed in typical Campbell fashion by simply (or not so simply) putting two actors inside one large costume.
Audience-carrying capacity was not a problem at London's vast Rainbow Theatre where Campbell mounted a yet more grandiose version of The Hitchhiker's Guide in July 1980. The venue had been renovated in the 1970s to take rock operas. Some reviewers, who in general did not greet the show favourably, labelled it a musical, since it now came with incidental music and audacious laser effects. It ran for over three hours and, despite attempts to shorten the script, was forced to close some four weeks early, in the process losing a lot of money.
For a year, 1980–1981, Campbell was artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman Theatre
Everyman Theatre
The Everyman Theatre stands at the north end of Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Established in 1964 in a former cinema, it encouraged local talent and played a part in the development of new artistes and writers. The theatre was rebuilt between 1975 and 1977, and was closed again for...
. From 1984, he made repeated efforts to adapt for the stage VALIS
VALIS
VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God....
, the largely autobiographical cult science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
, but to the disappointment of fans, these efforts came to nothing.
Television, radio and film
Campbell played Alex Gladwell, a corrupt lawyer, in one of the TV events of the 1970s, Law and Order, the notorious but ground-breaking corruption drama by G.F. Newman, a luminary of British TV screenwriting. The series provoked such a press outcry at the time that the BBCBBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
banned its overseas sale, since it was deemed to have portrayed Britain's police and criminal justice system in such a wholly unfavourable light.
He played Alf Garnett's neighbour Fred Johnson in the half-dozen series of the 1980s sitcom In Sickness and in Health
In Sickness and in Health
In Sickness and in Health was a BBC television sitcom which ran between 1985 and 1992. It was also a sequel to both the highly successful Til Death Us Do Part which ran between 1966 and 1975 and Till Death... which ran for one series in 1981.-Series 1:This comedy series debuted in 1985 and took...
, which had the effect of cementing his career-long friendship with Warren Mitchell.
Campbell in 1987 unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of the seventh doctor
Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor is the seventh incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy....
in Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. He was beaten to the role by his old protegé Sylvester McCoy. The then script editor
Script editor
A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
, Andrew Cartmel
Andrew Cartmel
Andrew Cartmel is a British science fiction writer and journalist, and former script editor of Doctor Who. He has also worked as a script editor on other television series, as a magazine editor, a film studies lecturer and as a novelist.-Biography:...
, later revealed that Campbell's interpretation had been considered "too dark" to put on television. Other roles included that of the irritating Roger in The Anniversary
The Anniversary (Fawlty Towers)
"The Anniversary" is the fifth episode of the second series of BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.- Synopsis :Basil pretends to have forgotten about Sybil's and his wedding anniversary, having secretly arranged a cocktail party with their friends due to arrive any minute. However, Sybil becomes enraged with...
episode of Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve television program episodes were produced . The show was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played major characters...
and the buck toothed antiques blackmailer Ted Goat in a 1993 episode of Lovejoy.
Campbell's radio career included playing Poodoo in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
, a part specifically written for him. The Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
literary programme The Verb included Campbell as a regular contributor; in such spots as Campbell's Book Soup he became an upturner of bibliographic rocks, revealing unconsidered trifles to the hilarity of fellow contributors.
His film work included Ken Loach's Poor Cow, Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
's The Tempest (1979), Breaking Glass
Breaking Glass
Breaking Glass is a 1980 British film starring Hazel O'Connor, Phil Daniels and Jonathan Pryce. The film was co-produced by Dodi Fayed and written and directed by Brian Gibson. The film was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival....
(1980), Chris Bernard
Chris Bernard
Chris Bernard is an English film director. He has directed eight films since 1985.He was born in Liverpool, England and started his professional career in the theatre...
's Letter to Brezhnev
Letter to Brezhnev
Letter to Brezhnev is a 1985 British comedy film about working class life in contemporary Liverpool. It was written by Frank Clarke and directed by Chris Bernard. It starred Alfred Molina, Peter Firth, Tracy Lea, Alexandra Pigg, Margi Clarke amongst others...
(1985), Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985), Saving Grace
Saving Grace (2000 film)
Track Listing# "Introduction" – 1:02# "Grace's Theme" – 2:42# "Take a Picture" – 5:55# "Make Me Smile " – 4:07# "Spirit in the Sky" – 3:56...
(2000) and Creep
Creep (film)
Creep is a 2004 British horror film about a woman locked in overnight on the London Underground who finds herself being stalked by a hideously deformed killer living in the sewers below...
(2004).
In the final years of his life Campbell suddenly found himself cast in a whole new TV role: that of doggedly curious sceptic called upon to probe the outer realms of particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
and cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
on behalf of the casual viewer, particularly where the science bordered on the paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
. Campbell's idiosyncratic presentation in Brainspotting, Reality On the Rocks and Six Experiments that Changed the World, each made for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, owed much to the influence of one of his heroes, the American iconoclast Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
. Campbell became a star turn at the annual Fortean Times
Fortean Times
Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing and then I Feel Good Publishing , it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000...
convention, UnCon.
Later career and one-man shows
From the late eighties onwards Campbell wrote and performed a series of one-man shows, each a mélange of autobiographical stand-up comedyStand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
, ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
speculation and popular-science rant. They include Recollections of a Furtive Nudist, Jamais Vu, Mystery Bruises, The History of Comedy Part One: Ventriloquism
Ventriloquism
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is an act of stagecraft in which a person manipulates his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy"...
and Pigspurt. Several were published by Methuen. He toured them worldwide.
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
. This was despite the fact that some years earlier, when Nunn was boss of the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, the two had fallen out spectacularly. Campbell had carefully concocted a press release and a string of personal letters complete with forged signature: Nunn appeared to be announcing that henceforth, as a consequence of the huge success of its recent adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, the Royal Shakespeare Company would be changing its name to the Royal Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
Company. Several grandees of the English theatre had been taken in by the hoax. Only when an exasperated Nunn called in Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
did Campbell finally own up.
In 1999, Campbell starred with Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part , and its sequels Till Death... and In Sickness and in Health , all of which were written by Johnny Speight...
and John Fortune
John Fortune
John Fortune is a British satirist, comedian writer and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John...
in Art
'Art' (play)
‘Art’ is a French language play by Yasmina Reza that premiered on 28 October 1994 at Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The English language adaptation, translated by Christopher Hampton opened in London's West End on 15 October 1996, starring Albert Finney. It played on Broadway in New York...
in London's West End.
In 2001 Campbell staged a version of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
in pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
English. It was the big gun in his campaign to get Bislama, first language of 6,000 inhabitants of the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
islands of Vanuatu, formally adopted as a world language (wol wantok). The virtue of Bislama was that with a bit of determination you could pick it up in an afternoon. Campbell argued that, in certain respects, Macbeth in pidgin was better than the original. If nothing else, the campaign had the effect of bringing to a wider public the Bislama for Prince Philip
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....
: "Nambawan bigfala emi blong Misis Kwin" (Number one big fellow him belong Mrs Queen).
With Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
, Bill Drummond
Bill Drummond
William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer and record producer. He was the co-founder of late 1980s avant-garde pop group The KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he burned a million pounds in 1994...
, Mixmaster Morris
Mixmaster Morris
Mixmaster Morris is an English ambient DJ and underground musician. Relating specifically to ambient music, Morris stated "It's exactly what you need if you have a busy and stressful life".-Life and career:...
and Coldcut
Coldcut
Coldcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
, he appeared at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in 2007 in a memorial tribute to Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
, co-author of the Illuminatus! novels.
In July 2008 Staffordshire University
Staffordshire University
Staffordshire University is a university with its main campus based in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and with other campuses in Stafford, Lichfield and Shrewsbury.- History :...
awarded Campbell an honorary doctorate
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
, labelling him one of Staffordshire's "greatest living success stories", a reference to his time as artist in residence
Artist in residence
Artist-in-residence programs and other residency opportunities allow visiting artists to stay and work so that they may apply singular focus to their art practice....
in 1967 at Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...
's Victoria Theatre.
Campbell appeared on 6 September 2009, over a year after his death, in the first of a new series of Marple
Marple (TV series)
Marple is a British television series based on the Miss Marple and other murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie. It is also known as Agatha Christie's Marple. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to third series, until her retirement from the role. She was replaced...
on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
. He played Crump; his wife was played by the late Wendy Richard
Wendy Richard
Wendy Richard, MBE was an English actress best known for playing Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and Pauline Fowler in EastEnders...
.
Personal life
Campbell married the actress Prunella GeePrunella Gee
Prunella Gee is an English actress.She studied at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art where she won the Spotlight Award for Best Actress...
in 1978, and they had a daughter, Daisy. They later divorced but remained close friends. Campbell lived at Loughton
Loughton
Loughton is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located between 11 and 13 miles north east of Charing Cross in London, south of the M25 and west of the M11 motorway and has boundaries with Chingford, Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill...
adjacent to Epping Forest
Epping Forest
Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland in south-east England, straddling the border between north-east Greater London and Essex. It is a former royal forest, and is managed by the City of London Corporation....
in a nineteenth century Swiss chalet. His funeral, a woodland burial in Epping Forest
Epping Forest
Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland in south-east England, straddling the border between north-east Greater London and Essex. It is a former royal forest, and is managed by the City of London Corporation....
, was attended by a distinguished roll of guests with whom he had worked in the theatre.
External links
- Campbell on BBC Radio 3, on the Library of the Peculiar & Jeremy BeadleJeremy BeadleJeremy James Anthony Gibson-Beadle MBE was an English television presenter, writer and producer. During the 1980s, he was a regular face on British television and in two years appeared 50 weeks of the year. His shows regularly topped the charts beating Coronation Street and EastEnders on one...
- 1977 Fanatic special issue for Campbell's stage version of Illuminatus! and Fortean Times coverage
- Jeff Merrifield on putting Illuminatus! on stage
- Macbeth in pidgin English, 1998
- Background to The Warp and full script
- Recording of performance in Manchester of The Captain sequence from Pigspurt, December 1992
Interviews
- 2004 recording of Campbell on the origins of Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool
- Interview with James Nye, 1991
- Guardian interview, 2005
- Guardian interview about Campbell's work in theatrical improvisation, 2005
Obituaries
- Michael Billington, The Guardian, with tributes from friends and fans, 1 Sept 2008
- Michael Coveney, The Guardian, 1 Sept 2008
- The Daily Telegraph, 1 Sept 2008
- Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times, 3 Sept 2008
- Fortean Times, November 2008
- Mark Borkowski, Chortle, UK comedy website, 1 Sept 2008
- Thompson's Bank of Communicable Desire - includes audio on origin of the pidgin Macbeth & the One-Minute Warp
- Gemma Bodinetz, artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse
- What's on Stage tribute from Simon McBurneySimon McBurneySimon Montagu McBurney, OBE is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité in England, now called Complicite.-Early life:...
of CompliciteCompliciteThe British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting... - The Fortean Institute
- The Independent, 3 Sept 2008
- The Times, 1 Sept 2008
- Liverpool Confidential
- Oblomovka Danny O'BrienDanny O'BrienDanny O'Brien is an English technology journalist and civil liberties activist. He wrote weekly columns for the Sunday Times and the Irish Times; and before that for The Guardian, and acted as a consultant in helping The Guardian formulate its online strategy. He worked for the UK edition of...
- BBC News
- BBC Radio 4's Last Word
- My Much-Missed Madcap Friend by Richard EyreRichard EyreSir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
, The Guardian, October 11, 2009