The first, authorised biography of the anarchic comic genius, much cherished for his performances on stage and screen. Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. Ken Campbell (1941-2008) was a one-man whirlwind who tore through the British theatre establishment using well-rehearsed anarchy and a genius for surreal comedy. Starting out in rep at Stoke-on-Trent, he founded the Ken Campbell Road Show, whose members included the then-unknown Bob Hoskins and Sylvester McCoy, and which toured pubs and clubs with dramatised urban myths and shaggy-dog stories. His later shows included Illuminatus! the first show at the National Theatre s studio and the 22-hour The Warp, the longest play in the world. On television he played corrupt lawyer Alex Gladwell in the 1970s series Law and Order, and was Alf Garnett s neighbour Fred Johnson in the sitcom In Sickness and in Health. He later found a devoted audience with his mesmerising one-man shows, which he toured worldwide. Theatre critic Michael Coveney was given unrestricted access to Campbell's letters, notebooks and original scripts. From these and from interviews with Campbell's many devoted/bemused collaborators, he has chronicled the life of the anarchic and uncompromising genius that was Ken Campbell. Alternately inspiring and jaw-dropping, The Great Caper is the story of a unique and inimitable talent in British theatre.
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Ken Campbell, 66 when he died in 2008 of a heart attack near his Swiss chalet in Epping Forest, was a great British eccentric. But as Michael Coveney's delightful biography also makes clear, the actor-cum-writer-cum-director can't so easily be categorised, patronised and dismissed. (Ken Campbell: The Great Caper) brings Campbell affectionately, hilariously yet not uncritically, to life... top marks. --The Times
About the Author
Michael Coveney was brought up in the same patch of suburban Essex as was Ken Campbell. After editing Plays and Players, he went on to be staff theatre critic on the Financial Times, Observer and Daily Mail. He has published biographies of Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He is currently chief critic for Whatsonstage.com.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an admirable book which I read yesterday evening, finishing it when I got up the this morning -- it's that interesting! I met Ken in the 70s when we were in a debate together -- I was at Uni, and he was resident playwright down the road at the Vic Theatre, Stoke. I auditioned for him a few years later in London, and finally I was part of a devised show he put together at the National Studio. I'm one of hundreds of people on whose lives he had an impact: there's even a Facebook page -- Ken Campbell changed my life!
The book is excellent in conveying how he used his intelligence (and he was clearly highly intelligent, a creative genius) to make stuff happen in the here and now. He didn't have much interest in conventional theatre -- though he did several shows at the National. He thought theatre had to be an event, an EVENT, which connected the community of theatre audiences with the community of those making theatre. His preferred medium was theatre, because of the possibility of this immediacy.
The book is excellent on making a serious case for the manifold influence Ken has had on theatre making since the 70s. The writer disentangles a rackety (at times) personal life, makes us understand the love he inspired in others, and oddly -- despite Ken's relatively early death at 65 -- suggests that his life and work had an overall coherence.
Ken was a great theorist who took delight in the tiny details of life, always pushing at people's inhibitions, perhaps because he thought they weren't happy enough -- whatever that means. He was an inspiration.... I once met him on Hampstead Heath and he pointed at his dog Werner -- telling me in all seriousness that he'd noticed that the dog shrank indoors and expanded, got physically bigger, once outdoors. Read the book and perhaps the same will happen to you! Highly recommended!
The book is excellent in conveying how he used his intelligence (and he was clearly highly intelligent, a creative genius) to make stuff happen in the here and now. He didn't have much interest in conventional theatre -- though he did several shows at the National. He thought theatre had to be an event, an EVENT, which connected the community of theatre audiences with the community of those making theatre. His preferred medium was theatre, because of the possibility of this immediacy.
The book is excellent on making a serious case for the manifold influence Ken has had on theatre making since the 70s. The writer disentangles a rackety (at times) personal life, makes us understand the love he inspired in others, and oddly -- despite Ken's relatively early death at 65 -- suggests that his life and work had an overall coherence.
Ken was a great theorist who took delight in the tiny details of life, always pushing at people's inhibitions, perhaps because he thought they weren't happy enough -- whatever that means. He was an inspiration.... I once met him on Hampstead Heath and he pointed at his dog Werner -- telling me in all seriousness that he'd noticed that the dog shrank indoors and expanded, got physically bigger, once outdoors. Read the book and perhaps the same will happen to you! Highly recommended!
2 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I only met Ken Campbell once, when he peformed his history of ventriloquism at Warwick Arts Centre about 10 years ago. I had a very enjoyable chat with him over a drink in the bar afterwards, and if he seemed a little subdued, the fact that he was in the middle of a long tour and had just delivered a one-man show lasting all evening might have aqccounted for it! Whatever he turned his hand to, the result was always enteraining & educative, witness his science histories for Channel 4.
This book is a superb account of a mercurial man and his life & times, with interviews from many friends & colleagues. My only reservation is that Chris Langham's comments were included. The nature of his criminal record sullies anything into which he comes into contact.
All in all, highly recommended, though.
This book is a superb account of a mercurial man and his life & times, with interviews from many friends & colleagues. My only reservation is that Chris Langham's comments were included. The nature of his criminal record sullies anything into which he comes into contact.
All in all, highly recommended, though.
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