40 Facts About Kenneth Widmerpool

Kenneth Widmerpool is a fictional character in Anthony Powell's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time, a 12-volume account of upper-class and bohemian life in Britain between 1920 and 1970.

Kenneth Widmerpool is successful in business, in the army and in politics, and is awarded a life peerage.

Literary analysts have noted Kenneth Widmerpool's defining characteristics as a lack of culture, small-mindedness, and a capacity for intrigue; generally, he is thought to embody many of the worst aspects of the British character.

Kenneth Widmerpool has been portrayed in two British Broadcasting Corporation radio dramatisations of the novel sequence and in Channel 4's television filmed version broadcast in 1997.

Apart from Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool is the only one of the 300-odd characters who takes part in the action of each of the 12 volumes.

The name "Kenneth Widmerpool" was assumed by many critics to derive from Kenneth Widmerpool, a Nottinghamshire village.

Kenneth Widmerpool's paternal grandfather was a Scottish businessman surnamed Geddes, who on marriage to a woman of higher social standing, adopted her name as his own.

Kenneth Widmerpool's mother is a woman of strong opinions and a great admirer of Stalin; her passion is her son's career and advancement.

Kenneth Widmerpool has a propensity to put on weight; although barely 30, Widmerpool appears to Jenkins as portly and middle-aged.

Kenneth Widmerpool's clothes are ill-fitting through weight loss, giving him the look of a scarecrow; his grey hair is sparse and his facial flesh hangs in pouches.

Kenneth Widmerpool's chief characteristic in his youth is an exaggerated respect for and deference to authority.

Kenneth Widmerpool has a craving for acceptance, even at the price of humiliation, and has a natural talent for aligning himself with the dominant power.

Many of Kenneth Widmerpool's traits are evident quite early in his career: his pomposity, his aversion to all forms of culture, his bureaucratic obsessions and his snobbishness.

Kenneth Widmerpool is politically naive and his contribution to the pre-war appeasement of Nazi Germany is to suggest that Hermann Goring be awarded the Order of the Garter and given a tour of Buckingham Palace.

Yet, as the novel sequence progresses, Kenneth Widmerpool emerges as far less of a buffoon and becomes, against all expectations, powerful and power-obsessed.

At school, Kenneth Widmerpool is undistinguished academically and athletically, a "gauche striver" in the words of one literary commentator.

Kenneth Widmerpool is the object of some ridicule, chiefly remembered for wearing the "wrong kind of overcoat" on his arrival at the school.

When Jenkins encounters him a few years after school, Kenneth Widmerpool has achieved some social success and is a regular invitee at dinner-dances.

Kenneth Widmerpool has acquired a commission as a lieutenant in the Territorial Army.

Kenneth Widmerpool develops a talent for intrigue, which irritates Sir Magnus to the extent that Widmerpool is asked to leave the organisation.

Kenneth Widmerpool joins a City firm of bill-brokers and still under the age of 30, becomes an influential and respected figure in the financial world.

At the beginning of the war Kenneth Widmerpool joins the army and with the advantage of his Territorial commission is rapidly promoted.

Kenneth Widmerpool is embarrassed by the presence of his former school-fellow, and engineers his transfer to a mobile laundry unit, which is sent to Singapore where Stringham meets his death.

In June 1941, Kenneth Widmerpool is transferred to London as a Military Assistant Secretary at the Cabinet Office.

Kenneth Widmerpool is complicit in the death of another school rival, Peter Templer, who as the result of a policy recommendation by Widmerpool, is abandoned while on a secret mission in the Balkans.

Kenneth Widmerpool is one of the backers of a left-leaning magazine, Fission, through which he hopes to propagate his economic and political views.

Kenneth Widmerpool is an assiduous promoter of good relations with eastern European countries and is suspected by some of a secret communist allegiance.

In 1958, Kenneth Widmerpool is appointed a life peer and takes his seat in the House of Lords.

Kenneth Widmerpool is last heard of late in 1971, when during a ritual dawn run through the woods he collapses and dies.

Kenneth Widmerpool was still staring wildly at Gypsy Jones, apparently regarding her much as a doctor, suspecting a malignant growth, might examine a diseased organism under a microscope; although I found later that any such diagnosis of his attitude was far from the true one.

Shortly afterwards, Kenneth Widmerpool becomes obsessed by Gypsy Jones, a fiery street radical he meets by chance, who according to Jenkins resembles "a thoroughly ill-conditioned errand boy".

When he is about 30, Kenneth Widmerpool becomes engaged to a considerably older widow, Mildred Haycock.

Kenneth Widmerpool is reported to have had some depraved dealings with a prostitute known as "Pauline".

Kenneth Widmerpool has been described as "one of the most memorable characters of 20th century fiction", and according to the literary critic John Bayley is as "famous a character in the annals of English fiction as either Pickwick or Jeeves".

Ali asserts that Kenneth Widmerpool is "in many ways a more inspired creation than Charlus".

Many readers and literary analysts have assumed that Kenneth Widmerpool was drawn from Powell's acquaintances.

Kenneth Widmerpool was responsible, apparently through spite, for preventing Powell's promotion to the rank of major.

Kenneth Widmerpool has twice been portrayed in BBC radio broadcasts of the Dance to the Music of Time sequence.

The dramatisation was by Michael Butt; the youthful Kenneth Widmerpool was played by Anthony Hoskyns and the adult character by Mark Heap.

Kenneth Widmerpool was played by Simon Russell Beale; in a generally critical review of the first film of the series, Thomas Sutcliffe in The Independent refers to Beale's performance as particularly good, bearing in mind the "thin ledges of characterisation" the script provides to the cast.