Ken Campbell _320
TRIBUTES have been paid to one of Liverpool’s most loved – and eccentric – adopted sons of the stage, Ken Campbell, who has died suddenly at the age of 66.
The Ilford-born actor and former artistic director of the Everyman Theatre had studied drama at Rada before joining Colchester Repertory theatre as understudy to Warren “Alf Garnett” Mitchell, with whom he later appeared in In Sickness and In Health.
In the early 1970s, he was inspired to found The Ken Campbell Roadshow, a small theatre group that performed in pubs and whose members included Bob Hoskins and Sylvester McCoy.
But it was only when he took up residence in Liverpool during 1976 that his innovative and pioneering career really began to take off.
He came at the invitation of the Liverpool School of Music, Language, Dream and Pun, a Mathew Street-based project founded by local artist Peter Halligan, who had been inspired by Carl Jung’s dream of Liverpool as the Pool of Life.
Under the umbrella of the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, which he set up with Chris Langham, Campbell staged an ambitious dramatisation of the Illuminatus sci-fi trilogy written by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea.
Featuring Campbell and Langham themselves plus David Rappaport, Jim Broadbent, and Campbell's then wife Prunella Gee, it was staged in the Dream School’s theatre in what is now the Flannigan’s Apple pub. It culminated in an unprecedented non-stop eight and half hour amalgamated marathon at the weekend.
“It was the national stage hit of 1976 and proved what a unique talent he really had,” said Mr Halligan, who said that his colleague and friend, who spent his final years in his home county of Essex, still looked on Liverpool as a second home.
“He had a very powerful connection with the city – he felt that there was a great meaning to the place and that he was surrounded by a lot of dynamic people.”
Liverpool Daily Post Arts Editor Phil Key agreed. “He was always full of energy and his mind was ticking over with wild ideas all the time – but they were wild ideas that nearly always worked,” said Phil, who is currently recuperating after major surgery.
“One was called War of the Newts and I had to do the interview with the actor stripped down to my trunks and holding my pen and notepad in the swimming baths at the Adelphi.”
Phil added: “Ken loved Liverpool. He told me he only left because he enjoyed himself so much here – he had to leave to preserve his health!”
Campbell made regular appearances in Brookside in the early 90s, as Jimmy Corkhill’s boss.
In 2004 he returned for one week as artist in residence to celebrate the Everyman’s 40th anniversary and was also honoured by being made a Companion to the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts.
