Theatre
Ken Campbell 1941–2008
Although the words ‘eccentric’ and ‘maverick’ will no doubt be over-used, they remain woefully inadequate in describing the force of nature that was Ken Campbell.
Ken was exceptionally generous, uniquely daring, utterly inspirational, ruthlessly compassionate and one of the greatest British theatre practitioners of all time. If you wanted to learn about theatre, and I mean real theatre, the best education you could get was from Ken.
I went to his workshops in 2005 at a squat in Archway where I learned more in five afternoons than in all my years at drama school and university. I immediately placed my theatre company at his disposal. We extemporised Shakespeare at The Globe, tore up The Royal Court with some wild impro, and created The School Of Night, which specialises in the dark art of making-things-up-on-the-spot. (In order to join you have to write a perfect Elizabethan sonnet while counting aloud, backwards from one hundred.)
‘There’s no point improvising unless it’s better than scripted stuff,’ was Ken’s challenge to excellence, a mantra learned during his visit to Edmonton, Canada where he discovered Dana Andersen and the ‘Die-Nasty’ improvisers at the epochal 53-hour ‘Soap-A-Thon.’ The result of that voyage is an Anglo-Canadian bridge that endures to this day (a group of us heading out there next week to participate in that life-changing event). He was excited by the notion that ‘great improvisers are born in the thirtieth hour,’ being too sleep-deprived to censor themselves. We would see him shuffle into the back of the theatre somewhere around hour thirty to catch the birth of the real mayhem. The annual 50-hour London Improvathon is a direct result of Ken’s pioneering spirit and his desire to share his discoveries with anyone who showed interest, regardless of their background or training. (I never once saw Ken consult a CV or a headshot, he was only interested in what they could do right there and then.)
In fact, he was passionately dedicated to people being wonderful. Should you become apologetic in his classes, ask too many questions or in any way avoid your own excellence he would be consumed with frustration and fury. Only the egotists retired bruised, complaining about his ‘attitude’. Anyone with a love of the craft followed him to the ends of the earth because they knew he was one of the few men who could help others access their own greatness.
All this from a man who favoured ‘the art of wittering as exemplified by Ant and Dec’ to anything by Shakespeare. Some people thought he wasn’t to be taken seriously but I’ve seen a lot of dull Shakespeare and some rather extraordinary wittering. ‘Let’s get that Mongolian contortionist in next week and do an opera with the Tuvan throat-singers!’ was common content for a phone call and the starting point for something. He was a master alchemist. I learned to wear goggles in his laboratory, the mishaps and explosions as important as any of the creations.
From Ken I learned that magic is more wonderful than truth, that the stage is a place for love and danger in equal measure, and that performers wearing slippers make less clattering noise on stage. As a creative artist I can think of few things more useful than his repeated question ‘if we were to do a show tonight, what would it be?’
There are many ‘eccentric mavericks’ but only one Ken Campbell. The School Of Night endures and is dedicated to him - our magician, our mentor and our friend. He leaves behind a pair of slippers impossible to fill.
Adam Meggido
The sad thing, the thing that cuts so deep, is that Ken has been, for me, over the past ten years, a touchstone of The Alternative. He showed me, and, no doubt, many others, including friends of mine, how fertile is The Other: the road not just less traveled, not just less explored, but the road that many people don't even know exists, don't even know might be so necessary in their lives. Yet fortunately for some, including those I have been lucky enough to know as they first encounter this utterly transformative and nurturing experience, when they take those initial tentative steps, they soon realise just what is being discovered: not just Ken's extraordinary topsy-turvy yet structured, empirical yet metaphysical, hysterical yet profound world, but also a life-changing community of like-minded folk.
Thinking on it, Ken was the leader of a religion, and that religion was Ken. For those who chose to turn into his world, he was a way of life. Not just someone to engage with during classes, rehearsals, performances or while walking the dogs, but a very real way of thinking that slowly, wondrously, vividly, would slip into every thought, envelop every action, gloriously infect every decision to be made. He was one of those people who helped me build a barrier - in my case a much needed barrier - to everything taking place outside my head that I find ridiculous, petty, nonsensical and damaging.
Think Emerson, the first lines of his 'Self-Reliance':
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may.
Ken will always remain, I suspect, one of those people who I will turn to, asking the questions, now to be answered unfortunately only speculatively, How Would Ken Do This? What Would He Think?
And that's the greatest thing I can say about anyone.
Paul Cronin