A teacher at Lamda had recommended early on that I might be suited to Ken Campbell’s way of working. I didn’t have the nerve to do anything about it. Eventually I did call and he said: “Oh, this is remarkable because I’m just about to do the most remarkable play yet done on Planet World! Read these books and come and have a chat.” So I did.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy [by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson] is a sort of science fiction piece, drawing together an awful lot of the then current conspiracy theories. It’s a huge thing that spreads over lots of different stories and characters.
It was the hot summer of 76, and the play was going to start in Liverpool. There was a character in the books of Illuminatus! called Fission Chips. I think he was sort of based on James Bond, And so I went along and quoted from the book in my Sean Connery accent.
If you wanted to be in it, you could be. I mean I don’t think he turned anyone away. An extraordinarily eclectic bunch of people [who included Bill Nighy, Bill Drummond, Chris Fairbank and David Rappaport] turned up, from all over the world, who he had persuaded to be part of this remarkable event for the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. I don’t think he ever did auditions as such. He just wanted to know what you could do.
So every morning we’d get to go to the rehearsal room in Mathew Street in Liverpool and the day’s pages were there. I made sure I was there before anyone else so I got a pick of the good parts. I think I ended up playing about 12 in all over the five plays.
Ken was on genius form. So enthusiastic and so funny; and he introduced me to a whole new world of theatre and showed me how to get an audience’s attention. It was a huge education – and it was hysterically funny. He was so brilliant and confidence-building. And I, having just done quite a lot of stodgy rep, found it utterly liberating.
He never wanted understatement from actors. (Unless, he might say: “I want you to understate this even more. Even smaller than that!”) No. He just wanted you to make sure it was fascinating. At one point I said to him, Ken, I’m a bit worried I’m upstaging the actor whose scene this is. “Don’t worry about that. If you’re more interesting than he is, that’s his problem.”
Ken had promoted it remorselessly and told everyone it was the most remarkable play yet done. And he had asked all the major directors of the theatres around England to come and be in it. One or two, just briefly, did. While we were in Liverpool, it was agreed that we would be the first ever play at the Cottesloe theatre in London.
From the start in Liverpool, I was sort of chums with Chris Fairbank; we would both make sure we got to work early. I remember saying to him in the first week: “From now on, our lives will be before or after Illuminatus!” And it was obvious that something very exciting was happening. We went to Amsterdam, and then the National Theatre. Everyone wanted to see it.
The Olivier had just opened with a huge, problematic production of Tamburlaine the Great with Albert Finney. There had been a lot of controversy about it and how difficult it was. And when Chris and Ken went down to meet Peter Hall, Hall said to them: “So what’s it like directing a five-hour play? How do you do it, Ken?” Ken said: “Well, it’s like doing Tamburlaine, but wanting to.”
• As told to Lindesay Irvine
