Kenneth Victor Campbell (born December 10, 1941 in Ilford, Essex) is a British writer, actor, director and comedian, known for his unconventional work in theatre. December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Ilford is a town in North-East London, UK in the London Borough of Redbridge. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ...

He was educated at Chigwell School and then studied drama at RADA before joining Colchester Repertory theatre as an understudy to Warren Mitchell. 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. Chigwell School is an English public school in the county of Essex, south-east England. ... Rada is the term for council or assembly borrowed by Polish from Middle High German Rat (council) and later passed into Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages. ... This article is about the town in England. ... Properly, repertory is a style of a number of repertory companies which rehearsed and performed plays in a fortnight. ... An understudy is a theatrical term for someone who learns the lines and moves of a leading actor or actress in a theatrical play. ... Warren Mitchell, (born 1926, Stoke Newington, London) is a British-born actor with Australian citizenship. ... Lindsay Anderson (April 17, 1923 - August 30, 1994), English film and documentary director. ... The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. ... The Roundhouse was an arts venue at Chalk Farm (near Camden Town), in London, England, although it started life differently (connected with the railways). ... Events and trends Although in the United States and in many other Western societies the 1970s are often seen as a period of transition between the turbulent 1960s and the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, many of the trends that are associated widely with the Sixties, from the Sexual Revolution... A public house, usually known as a pub, is a drinking establishment found mainly in the Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries influenced by British cultural heritage. ... Robert William Bob Hoskins (born October 26, 1942) is a British actor who specialises in playing Cockney rough diamonds and/or gangsters and in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). ... Sylvester McCoy (born August 20, 1943) is a Scottish actor. ...

On television he played Alf Garnett's neighbour in In Sickness and in Health, and the irritating Roger in an episode of Fawlty Towers ("The Anniversary"). On radio he played Poodoo, a part written especially for him, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Campbell's film work includes Derek Jarman's The Tempest (1979), Breaking Glass (1980) and Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985), and more recently in Saving Grace (2000) and Creep (2004). In Sickness and in Health was a BBC television sitcom sequel to the highly successful Till Death Us Do Part, an everyday tale of a dysfunctional East London family. ... The cast of Fawlty Towers, clockwise from top: Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales), Manuel (Andrew Sachs) and Polly Sherman (Connie Booth) Fawlty Towers was a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast in 1975. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... ... Derek Jarman (January 31, 1942 - February 19, 1994) was a British film director, gardener, stage designer, artist, and writer. ... The Tempest is the title of: A play by William Shakespeare A painting by Giorgione A Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel It is also the nickname often attached to the Sonata No. ... 1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Breaking Glass is a 1980 British film starring Hazel OConnor, Phil Daniels, and Jonathan Pryce. ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Peter Greenaway Peter Greenaway (b. ... A Zed & Two Noughts (A.K.A. Zoo) is a 1985 film written and directed by Peter Greenaway. ... 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Saving Grace is the name of at least two films. ... 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The term creep has several meanings: A derogatory slang term describing a type of person; e. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1976, he and Chris Langham formed the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool in order to stage Illuminatus!, an 8-and-a-half hour cycle of 5 plays by Campbell based on The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. As well as starring Campbell and Langham themselves, it featured David Rappaport, Jim Broadbent, and Campbell's wife Prunella Gee. It eventually moved to the Royal National Theatre. The Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool also produced a (rather less successful) stage adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Langham as Arthur Dent. 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Chris Langham (born 14 April 1949) is a British writer and comedian. ... 23 The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. ... Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson or R. A. W. (born January 18, 1932) is a futurologist, libertarian, and novelist. ... Robert Joseph Shea (1933 - March 10, 1994) was the co-author (with Robert Anton Wilson) of The Illuminatus! Trilogy. ... David Stephen Rappaport (November 23, 1951 - May 2, 1990) was a diminutive British actor, probably one of the most well-known little people in television and film, standing at 3 11. Rappaport was born in London, and soon developed talents in both music and theatre. ... Jim Broadbent (born May 24, 1949) is an English television and film actor. ... The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge The Royal National Theatre of Great Britain is a building and theatre company on Londons South Bank. ... Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. ...

Campbell unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of the Seventh Doctor in Doctor Who in 1987, being beaten to the rôle by his old protegé Sylvester McCoy. BBC Doctor Who website DMOZ Doctor Who page Doctor Who Cuttings Archive — hosts a large number of press cuttings from the 60s onwards. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sylvester McCoy (born August 20, 1943) is a Scottish actor. ...

Since the late eighties Campbell has written and performed a series of one-man shows. Part autobiography, part stand-up comedy, part philosophical exploration, part popular science lecture, Campbell's shows include Recollections of a Furtive Nudist, Pigspurt, Jamais Vu, Mystery Bruises and The History of Comedy part one: ventriloquism. Campbell has toured these shows worldwide, and many of them have been published as scripts by Methuen books.

Campbell was later commissioned by the National's director Trevor Nunn to write The History of Comedy Part One: Ventriloquism. The two had previously fallen out when Nunn had been director of the Royal Shakespeare Company: when Campbell had distributed a fake press release, stating that after the success of their production of Nicholas Nickleby they would be changing their name to the Royal Dickens Company, Nunn had brought in the police. Sir Trevor Nunn (born 14 January 1940) is a theatre and film director. ... The Royal Shakespeare Company is a British theatre company, one of the most influential in the country. ... The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, (or Nicholas Nickleby for short) is a comic novel of Charles Dickens. ...

In 1999, Campbell starred with Warren Mitchell and John Fortune in Art in London's West End. In 2001 in his show Wol Wantok he proposed that Bislama, as spoken in the Republic of Vanuatu, should be adopted as a world language. Campbell translated Macbeth into Bislama for the show, as well popularising the Bislama for Prince Philip: "Nambawan Bigfala him blong Missus Queen" (Number one big fellow him belong Mrs Queen). Warren Mitchell, (born 1926, Stoke Newington, London) is a British-born actor with Australian citizenship. ... John Fortune (born June 30, 1939) is a British satirist, comedian and actor. ... Art is a comedic play by Yasmina Reza. ... 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bislama is a Melanesian creole language, one of the official languages of Vanuatu. ... Scene from Macbeth, depicting the witches conjuring of an apparition in Act IV, Scene I Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based loosely on the historical King Macbeth of Scotland. ... HRH The Duke of Edinburgh His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (Philip Mountbatten), styled HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (born June 10, 1921), is the consort of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ...

Campbell is known in the UK as a commentator on both science and the paranormal, and has presented the Channel 4 television shows Reality On the Rocks, Brainspotting and Six Experiments that Changed the World. He is keen on the writings of Charles Fort and often appears at UnCon, the Fortean Times convention. Channel 4 is a television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Charles Fort, 1920 Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 - May 3, 1932), writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena, was the son of an Albany grocer of Dutch ancestry. ... Nearly every year since 1994 the Fortean Times magazine has held its convention but, given its emphasis on strange phenomena, it is called the UnConvention or, more affectionately, UnCon. ... Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine of Fortean phenomena: anomalous phenomena of the sort popularised by Charles Fort. ...

Bibliography

• 1972 - You see the thing is this: a one act comedy (ISBN 0-23774-966-1)
• 1972 - Old King Cole (ISBN 1870259122)
• 1975 - Skungpoomery (ISBN 0413675203)
• 1976 - Jack Sheppard (ISBN 0333196236)
• 1991 - Recollections of a Furtive Nudist (ISBN 1871503035)
• 1993 - Pigspurt: Or Six Pigs from Happiness (ISBN 0413681009)
• 1995 - The Bald Trilogy' (ISBN 0413690806) - a volume collecting together Furtive Nudist, Pigspurt and Jamais Vu
• 1996 - Violin time; or, the Lady from Montségur (ISBN 0-41370-960-4)
• 2000 - Wol Wantok (ISBN 1841660396) - a pidgin English version of Macbeth

A Pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues. ...

External links

• Official site for Ken Campbell (http://www.tentringer.co.uk/)
• An interview (http://www.frogboy.freeuk.com/ken.html) from 1991 and another (http://www.literaturefestival.co.uk/reports/campbell.html) from 2003.
• The Frogweb:ILLUMINATUS! (http://www.frogboy.freeuk.com/illuminatus.html)
• Illuminatus! Amazing adventures in putting Science Fiction on the stage (http://www.meryfela.demon.co.uk/sftol.htm)
• Ken Campbell (http://www.cix.co.uk/~dfarmbrough/ken.htm)
• Ken Campbell (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0132631/) at the Internet Movie Database