I first met Ken as a student, when a friend took me to a Brian Aldiss reading on a tour on which Ken was being the stooge. We all went off to the pub afterwards, and it was immediately apparent that the little I knew of the man (Illuminatus, Fawlty Towers, H2G2, shoving a rotting prawn down Jim Davidson's throat in Peter Greenaway's A Zed And Two Noughts) was both accurate and the tiniest fraction of the delights of this contagious enthusiast.
When I became a theatre journalist a few years later I always enjoyed reviewing his work, and an interview with Ken was the first feature I ever did for the Financial Times (with which I'm now senior theatre critic). I became one of his accredited hacks, as it were, and he phoned me up when the 1997 revival of The Warp was imminent. I saw it, and fifteen or so other performances during this phase of its existence, occasionally also performing in it. In its last performance in 2000, I started doing one character in Ken's voice and was greeted by that unmistakable "HEH!" in the darkness... then within about 30 seconds I collapsed in coughs, because trying to project that kind of rasp takes a lot of practice.
I was onstage with him barely ten days before his death, when he came up to Edinburgh to act as "guest director" for Showstopper! - The Improvised Musical, by a company he had trained; the idea for these performances was that, instead of asking the audience for cues, they'd have a critic in each night, who would read out a review of an imaginary musical, which the company would then perform. I offered "Schism!", a bisexual love triangle between Anglican bishops against the backdrop of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, with a climactic scene in the style of Sarah Kane. The company were phenomenal, egged on by Ken as he kept nipping behind the flats to offer advice, all the while wearing a teacosy topped off with a knitted duck.
Two briefer memories: although I'd been commissioning book reviews from you for a year or so, Roz, we'd never met until a book launch where Ken also happened to be. "Oh, you must meet her: big woman, used to be a bloke." His phrasing was always impeccable in its effect.
The other one: a couple of nights ago I bumped into Sylvester McCoy in King's Cross tube station, and we shared a moment's reflection. Said he, "It's all wrong - Ken wasn't mortal."
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Date: 2008-09-06 12:14 am (UTC)When I became a theatre journalist a few years later I always enjoyed reviewing his work, and an interview with Ken was the first feature I ever did for the Financial Times (with which I'm now senior theatre critic). I became one of his accredited hacks, as it were, and he phoned me up when the 1997 revival of The Warp was imminent. I saw it, and fifteen or so other performances during this phase of its existence, occasionally also performing in it. In its last performance in 2000, I started doing one character in Ken's voice and was greeted by that unmistakable "HEH!" in the darkness... then within about 30 seconds I collapsed in coughs, because trying to project that kind of rasp takes a lot of practice.
I was onstage with him barely ten days before his death, when he came up to Edinburgh to act as "guest director" for Showstopper! - The Improvised Musical, by a company he had trained; the idea for these performances was that, instead of asking the audience for cues, they'd have a critic in each night, who would read out a review of an imaginary musical, which the company would then perform. I offered "Schism!", a bisexual love triangle between Anglican bishops against the backdrop of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, with a climactic scene in the style of Sarah Kane. The company were phenomenal, egged on by Ken as he kept nipping behind the flats to offer advice, all the while wearing a teacosy topped off with a knitted duck.
Two briefer memories: although I'd been commissioning book reviews from you for a year or so, Roz, we'd never met until a book launch where Ken also happened to be. "Oh, you must meet her: big woman, used to be a bloke." His phrasing was always impeccable in its effect.
The other one: a couple of nights ago I bumped into Sylvester McCoy in King's Cross tube station, and we shared a moment's reflection. Said he, "It's all wrong - Ken wasn't mortal."
I hope he enjoys the final line of my FT obit for him.