32 Facts About Ken Campbell

Kenneth Victor Campbell was an English actor, director and writer.

Ken Campbell was known for his work in experimental theatre.

Ken Campbell has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre".

Ken Campbell was born on 10 December 1941 in Ilford, Essex, the son of Elsie and Anthony Colin Ken Campbell, who was a telegrapher.

Ken Campbell was educated at Chigwell School and then studied at RADA before joining Colchester Repertory theatre as an understudy to Warren Mitchell.

Ken Campbell soon began writing and directing his own productions, including working with director Lindsay Anderson.

Ken Campbell was invited by John Cleese to appear with his Roadshow team in the first Secret Policeman's Ball in June 1979.

Ken Campbell 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.

Ken Campbell commissioned the cycle of ten plays after hearing Oram.

Audience-carrying capacity was not a problem at London's vast Rainbow Theatre where Ken Campbell mounted a yet more grandiose version of The Hitchhiker's Guide in July 1980.

Ken Campbell played Alf Garnett's neighbour, Fred Johnson in the series of the 1980s sitcom In Sickness and in Health, which had the effect of cementing his career-long friendship with Warren Mitchell.

Ken Campbell was memorable in Jack Pulman's 1981 television series Private Schulz as the acerbic Herr Krauss, an underwear factory owner hoping the war would continue so as not to jeopardise his contracts with the German army.

Ken Campbell was beaten to the role by his old protege Sylvester McCoy, but an independently written and produced episode, "The Lost Doctor", features the voice of Ken Campbell.

The then script editor, Andrew Cartmel, later revealed that Ken Campbell's interpretation had been considered "too dark" to put on television.

Ken Campbell became a star turn at the annual Fortean Times convention, UnCon.

Ken Campbell was later commissioned by the National's director Trevor Nunn to write The History of Comedy Part One: Ventriloquism.

In 1999, Ken Campbell starred with Warren Mitchell and John Fortune in Art in London's West End.

In 2001, Ken Campbell staged a version of Macbeth in pidgin English, called Makbed.

Ken Campbell argued that, in certain respects, Macbeth in pidgin was better than the original.

Ken Campbell played Crump; his wife was played by Wendy Richard.

On 23 April 2005, Ken Campbell was asked by Mark Rylance, the artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, to stage a celebration of Shakespeare's work.

Ken Campbell continued working with some of the actors from Shall We Shog, shedding and adding more along the way.

Ken Campbell presented a series of literary improvisation shows, including a run at the Royal Court Theatre called Decor Without Production, in which the cast would create scenes and songs in the styles of poets, playwrights, novelists and songwriters.

In 2006, Ken Campbell worked with Adam Meggido's theatre company the Sticking Place and staged a run of In Pursuit of Cardenio at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, during which the cast were supposed to re-create a lost Shakespeare play through improvisational techniques.

One example of the extent to which Ken Campbell pushed the actors was that by the end, each member of cast had developed four musical styles in which they could improvise, each corresponding to a different Elizabethan humour.

The Cardenio shows used Ken Campbell's now well-established "Goader and Rhapsodes" technique, in which the goader pushed the rhapsodes into feats that they would not be able to achieve without the pressure he could apply.

Ken Campbell's take on it was that the group, which included playwrights and poets, were steeped in the art of extemporisation and would create from scratch, in perfect meter, plays and poems.

Ken Campbell performed with 'The Showstoppers' in August 2008 in their second Edinburgh Fringe, reprising his School of Night role as on-stage director of proceedings in the final six shows of the run.

Ken Campbell married the actress Prunella Gee in 1978, and they had a daughter, Daisy.

Ken Campbell was in a relationship with the ventriloquist and actress Nina Conti when she was 26 and he was 59; from him she inherited his collection of ventriloquist dummies.

Ken Campbell lived in Loughton, adjacent to Epping Forest, in a nineteenth-century Swiss chalet.