Issue 16/17, 2008
Prompt Corner 
'No doubt we shall actually talk to each other in the days to come,' I blithely remarked in this column last issue. How wrong could I be.
Bullying To recap briefly:
On 7 August I went to see Sadao Theatre's production The Factory at the Pleasance on the Edinburgh Fnnge. It aimed to evoke the industrial process aspect of the Holocaust by treating the audience as Auschwitz inmates, and bullying them relentlessly. At one relatively unobtrusive point in the performance I refused a command to move by saying, moderately, *No,' when yelled at. (I subsequently altered this to 'Say 'please?) The performance moved on without me and without disruption: I left the theatre. That night, director/performer Steve Lambert and a comrade spent some time ostentatiously following me around the venue's dub bar. It was clear that they didn't want to talk, just to make me uncomfortably conscious of their presence close by; basically, they were intimidating me.
That was as far as things had got when I wrote the last Prompt Comer. In fact. Lambert did much more heavying the following night, with wordless but strong psychological threats over a sustained period, including making to follow me as I left; only by bringing the matter to the attenbon of the venue's director did I get out. The following day I logged the matter with the police. though I was told that it didn't amount to an incident for which I could be given an official case number.
Assault
My friend and colleague Chris Wilkinson, who as well as being a theatre director is one of the Guardians theatre bloggers (and one with whom I frequently and candidly disagree) had. by chance. already booked to see the show the following day. When he heard my account of the performance, his initial response - which he kept to himself at the time - was that I had overreacted. In the event, however, he found himself feeling exactly the same, and so started refusing to face the way he was ordered to. and also challenged one bellowed 'MOVE!' with 'Or what?' Chris, however, stayed with the show until the end (a scene set in the gas chamber in which the audience are ordered to strip in exactly the same way as the other orders barked out. but this time apparently on the assumption that they won't comply).
Fully a week after the performance he attended, Chris was violently assaulted in the venue's club bar by Lambert and another company member, in separate incidents. (Other members of the company hauled the attackers off: Chris later had a lengthy and non-antagonistic conversation with those others.) Since the Independent had briefly written up my run-ins with the company. I suggested to Chris that he get in touch with them for a follow-up story. While he was actually on the phone to the paper. Lambert assaulted him again in the street outside the Pleasance's main campus. Chris, having reported the initial attacks to the police, returned with details of this new assault, and on being told his options, he chose that a formal police warning be given to Lambert.
Inaccuracies
The result of Chris's call to the Indie can be seen opposite. I count six inaccuracies in 130 or so words, which is going it somewhat. Most saliently, Chris did not pull faces during the performance, blow kisses at them in the bar or 'exchange colourful verbals' with them (unless by "exchange" one means have a torrent directed at him out of nowhere and respond with a single moderate epithet).
Lambert apparently later apologised to the staff of the bar and to the management of the venue, which (unusually for the Edinburgh Fringe) had a financial stake in the production. Well, whoopee. Never a word even of discussion, let alone apology, to either Chns or myself. He also continued to be welcome in the bar after his acts of unprovoked violence, with the result that Chris and I remained apprehensive and on the alert against his possible entrance. and downright fearful on the one occasion he did turn up. In some ways, the Pleasance's inaction has been more disturbing than Lambert's actions.
The Financial Times'legalled out' all my references to events after the actual performance, leaving my account of the show as my first ever no-star review. Chris fared better at the Guardian, who after some legal consultation published a blog entry by him at http: / /biog.. guardian. co.uk/theatre/2008/08/edinburgh_fsstival_holocaust_s html -
the thread of comments beneath it includes several by me. I don't intend to rehash much of that discussion, but it raised some interesting points regarding Chris's and my behaviour in the light of our status as critics.
Aware
Leaving aside the question of the extent to which we 'disrupted' performances (which I maintain was infinitesimal), a number of commenters seemed to take the opinion that a critic's duty to cover the event in question effectively limits her/his rights in common with any other audience member to respond as they may feel appropriate or warranted. This surely cannot be the case. A critic has a responsibility to report the event, certainly, but it is fantasy to believe that such a report can ever be written in terms that are both rigorously impersonal and significantly meaningful. Reviewing is a matter of perception, and articulation of that perception: however stringent one's training, it is at root a subjective activity. Remember, too, Heisenberg's axiom that the act of measurement inevitably affects the condition of the thing measured. Chris and I may possibly have found that our professional status as critics invested us with greater assurance of our common status as contracting parties to the performer/audience agreement, and so we felt more able to behave in the way we did in performance: however, we were not abusing our status as critics - rather, we were making hill use of our status as aware audience members. It seems to me that the dishonesty, the betrayal of truth as regards the event, would be to suppress such response rather than to give vent to it. Steve Lambert seems to disagree, but then his declaration on the company web site that 'Badac's work has always focused on human rights issues evidently doesn't extend, outside the theatre, to the basic human right not to be physically attacked.
I'm sorry to go on at such tedious length: a month and more later, this grotesque saga continues to haunt me. The most grotesque aspect of all is that such comparatively minor unpleasantnesses can serve to overshadow the enormity of the events dealt with in the play.
Nutter
To other matters, though I'm afraid not to more agreeable ones. Last week, like many others, I was stunned to learn of the sudden death aged 66 of Ken Campbell. He was a theatrical maverick, an astounding catalyst and a genuine nutter in the very best and most laudable senses of the word. Wander down any of the more weird and wonderful byways of British drama over the past 40 years, and you could be confident Ken had been there before you and left his curious mark.
After growing up in Ilford. Essex and training at RADA, his early career included a tour as stooge to comedian Dick Emery and a stint as director of the Boumemouth Aqua Shows (-the shallow-end acting bit,' he specified) before joining Colchester Rep as Warren Mitchell's understudy. His association with Mitchell would continue for decades, with Ken appearing as M Garnett (Mitchellys neighbour Fred Johnson in the TV senes In Sickness And In Health in the mid-1980s and the pair joining John Fortune in one of the West End casts of Yasmina Reza s play Art in the '90s.
He began writing and directing plays in the late 1960s, with his Old King Cole becoming a children's favourite. A stint of writing and directing at the Royal Court with Lindsay Anderson persuaded him that he was not cut out for a career in "straight' theatre; years later he reflected, 'I can write a bit; I can direct, but I only really enjoy directing something that nobody else will, I don't want to join the whocan-do-The-Cherry-Orchard-best competition, because the answer is it wouldn't be me.- So began a life of dramatic guemlla activity, inspired by improvisational, event-centred companies such as The Living Theater and Theatre Machine
Cackle
The Ken Campbell Roadshow in the early 1970s combined storytelling with surreal stunts, and is remembered partly for the sequence in which Sylvester McCoy put a live ferret down his trousers. (McCoy, like Bob Hoskins, was a Roadshow-era Campbell discovery, and in 1987 would just beat Ken to the role of Doctor Who.) By the middle of the decade he had founded the Silence Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, whose nine-hour (including intervals) stage adaptation of the Illuminatus! novel trilogy became the inaugural production in the National Theatre's Cottesloe space in 1977; its cast included Jim Broadbent, co-adaptor Chris Langham and David Rappaport, with miniature sets designed by Bill Drummond, later of art-terrorists the KLF. In 1979-80 he topped this with a 22-hour-long production of Neil Oram's play cycle The Warp, which played in London, Liverpool and Edinburgh and included Bill Nighy; Ken and his daughter Daisy revived the cycle in various productions in 1997-2000. Having first met Ken when I was a student in 1986 and subsequently grown to become one of his pet critics, I began reviewing this version of The Warp and little by little became a minor member of the company and sometime performer in it. I recall beginning to deliver one characters lines in an impersonation of Ken's voice and hearing his trademark cackle at the back of the theatre... only for me to collapse in coughs after about 30 seconds, unused to projecting such a vocal rasp.
Ken's talent for unearthing remarkable people. bringing them together and setting them on surprising new paths was a constant in his life. Actors John Alderton and Pauline Collins first met when rehearsing for one of his TV plays; later their daughter Kate would play in The Warp mark 2. Tom Conti's actress daughter Nina was inspired by Ken to become one of the UK's leading comedy ventriloquists. He himself popped up all over the place. from a brief but memorable appearance in Fawlty Towers ('Syb ill. Baz well!') to Derek Jarman's The Tempest and shoving a rotting prawn down comedian Jim Davidson's throat in Peter Greenaway's A Zed And Two Noughts. He also perpetrated one of British theatres greatest hoaxes in the early 1980s, when he sent out letters which purported to be from Royal Shakespeare Company director Trevor Nunn (signed love, Trev'), claiming that, following the success of their stage production of Nicholas Nickleby, the RSC was set to become the Royal Dickens Company and inviting various leading writers and directors to participate.
Unforgettable
In the 1990s, he began a series of solo storytelling shows with (Recollections Of A) Furtive Nudist, Pigspurt! and Jamais Vu, collectively known on their National Theatre appearance as 'the Bald trilogy' to contrast with the (David) Hare trilogy then also playing. Subsequent shows included an unforgettable essay on the part of Angus in Macbeth ('Why does everyone ignore him? Has he committed some horrendous social gaffe? Do they not see him - is he a dwarf?') and a collection whose title sums him up perfectly: I'm Not Mad - I've Just Read Different Books. He also presented a number of popular science mini-senes for Channel 4 television including Reality On The Rocks and Brainspotting.
His enthusiasms during this period included the pidgin language of the South Pacific islands, in which he staged a production of Macbeth (or Makbed bilong Wlum Sekspia), ventriloquism, the screenwriting courses of Robert McKee, the films of Jackie Chan and an increasingly explicit fascination with improvisation, which had always been a major facet of his work. In recent years he began to encourage a group of performers now known as The School Of Night into long-form theatrical improvisation, with a 36-hour marathon in 2005 and a 50-hour Improvathon in early 2008. He was most recently seen onstage barely a week before his death. as guest 'director' and provocateur in the company's Edinburgh Fringe production Showstopper! - The Improvised Musical, in which a number of critics (including myself) were invited to present reviews of imaginary musicals which the company would then turn into reality, egged on by Ken, wearing on his trademark bald pate a teacosy topped off with a knitted duck.
His marriage to actress Prunella Gee ended in divorce but they remained good friends. He is survived by Daisy, two grandchildren. three dogs and Doris, an African grey parrot whom he had been training to squawk her own life story
Kenneth Victor Campbell, December 10, 1941 - August 31, 2008.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
- No At the Back this issue
Contents / Reviews
Reviewed in issue 16/17, 2008: |
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London |
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BLOOD WEDDING Revival of play by Fedenco Garcia Lorca n version by Ted Hughes |
The Scoop |
1 Aug |
7 Sep |
913 |
A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD UK premiere of play by Paddy CalisUo and Susan Claassen |
Ms |
31 Jul |
30 Aug |
924 |
COSI Revival of play by Louis Nowra (Good Night Out) |
White Bear |
29 Jul |
24 Aug |
907 |
OANGALNAMA New piece devised and presented by Flame (LIFT) |
The Lift |
13 Jun |
17 Jun |
933 |
ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY Return of solo entertainment written by Jon Lahr and Elaine Stritch |
Shaw |
31 Jul |
10 Aug |
914 |
ENDURING FREEDOM New play by Anders Lustgarten |
Finborough |
8 Aug |
30 Aug |
924 |
FORTY New play by Angie Le Mar |
Hackney Empire |
4 Aug |
17 Aug |
928 |
THE GARDEN New play by Helena Thompson (S.P.I.D.) |
Sunbeam Gardens |
8 Aug |
31 Aug |
929 |
GIGI Revival of musical by Allan Jay Lemer and Frederick Loewe |
Open Air |
14 Aug |
13 Sep |
938 |
GOB SQUADS KITCHEN New piece by Gob Squad |
Soho |
21 Jul |
26 Jul |
906 |
GONE TOO FAR' Return of play by Bola Agbale |
Royal CØ |
28 Al |
9 Aug |
901 |
HALPERN 8 JOHNSON London premiere of 1983 play by Lionel Goldstein |
New End |
29Jå |
31 Aug |
907 |
HER NAKED SKIN New play by Rebecca Lenkiewiü (NT) |
Olivier |
31 Jul |
24 Sep |
915 |
MISS BEHAVES VARIETY NIGHTY Budesque/vahety entertainment |
Roundhouse |
31 Jul |
24 Aug |
923 |
MOLL FLANDERS New adaptation by Peter Macen from novel by Damet Defoe (Camarilla) |
Southwark Playhouse |
14 Aug |
30 Aug |
944 |
MONEY FROM AMERICA Revival of play by Torn O'Brien |
Ob Red Lion |
5 Aug |
30 Ø |
929 |
PETITE ROUGE: A CAJUN RED HIDING HOOD New musical by Joan Cushing. from book by Mike Aren |
The Scoop |
15 Aug |
7 Sep |
945 |
PIAF Revival of play by Pam Gems |
Dansar Warehouse |
13 Aug |
20 Sep |
934 |
ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of play by Shakespeare (Mustard Prods) |
Pacific Playhouse |
19 Aug |
30 Aug |
946 |
THE SHADOWMASTER New adaptation by Stephanie SinØre of Dear BMus by J M Barrie |
King's Head |
31 Jul |
7 Sep |
912 |
...SOME TRACE OF HER New piece inspired by The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (NT) |
Cottesloe |
30 Jul |
21 Oct |
908 |
STARS IN THE MORNING SKY Revival ot play by Alexander Galin (Jagged Fence) |
Riverside |
30 Jul |
16 Aug |
913 |
THERESE RAQUIN Revival of play by Erie Zola in new version by Pauline Mclynn (Montmiral Prods) |
Riverside |
19 Aug |
7 Sep |
946 |
THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG Revival of musical by Neil SimonrMarvin HamhscIVCarcte Bayer Sager |
Mener Chocolate Factory |
4 Aug |
28 Sep |
925 |
THIS WIDE NIGHT New play by Chloe Moss (Clean Break) |
Soho |
31 Jul |
9 Aug |
922 |
THE THREEPENNY RING CYCLE New adaptation of opera cycle by Richard Wagner (Les Grooms) |
National Theatre, Square 2 |
12 Aug |
16 Aug |
929 |
TIMON OF ATHENS Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Globe |
6 Aug |
3 Oct |
930 |
TWELFTH NIGHT Revival of play by Shakespeare (Oxford Shakespeare Co) |
Kensington Palace Gardens |
2 Aug |
15 Aug |
921 |
WAVES Return of piece devised by Katie Mitchell and the company. han Ø by Virginia Wood (NT) |
Cottesbe |
20 Aug |
9 Sep |
912 |
WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND Revival of musical adaptation by Russel Labey and RØrd Taylor (NYMT) |
Greenwich |
13 Aug |
16 Aug |
944 |
WILD TURKEY Revival of play by Joe Penhall (Naacte Th) |
Troy Bar |
4 Aug |
16 Aug |
924 |
THE WIZARD OF OZ Revival of musical adaptation from book by L Frank Baum |
Royal Festival Hall |
29 Jul |
31 Aug |
903 |
WORLDS APART Rep season of new plays - see review pages for full decals (National Youth Th) |
Soho |
18 Aug |
13 Sep |
942 |
Regions |
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BETRAYAL Revival of pray by Harold Pinter (Rapture Th) |
St Andrews. Byre |
14 Aug |
6 Sep |
963 |
THE CIRCLE Revival of play by W Somerset Maugham |
Chichester Festival |
30 Jul |
29 Aug |
951 |
COLLABORATION New play by Ronald Harwood |
Chichester. Minerva |
29 Jul |
30 Aug |
949 |
ENJOY Revival of play by Alan Bennett (Peter Han Co) |
Bath, Theatre Royal |
18 Aug |
30 Aug |
960 |
FLAMINGOLAND New play by Deborah McAndrew |
Newcasunder-tyme. New Vic |
25 Jul |
16 Aug |
960 |
HAMLET Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) |
Stratford-upon-Avon. Courtyard |
5 Aug |
15 Nov |
953 |
TAKING SIDES Revival of play by Ronald Harwood |
Chicester, Minnema |
29 Jul |
30 Aug |
949 |