Ken Campbell - Television, Radio and Film

Television, Radio and Film

Campbell played Alex Gladwell, a corrupt lawyer, in one of the TV events of the 1970s, Law and Order, the notorious but ground-breaking corruption drama by G.F. Newman, a luminary of British TV screenwriting. The series provoked such a press outcry at the time that the BBC banned its overseas sale, since it was deemed to have portrayed Britain's police and criminal justice system in such a wholly unfavourable light.

He played Alf Garnett's neighbour Fred Johnson in the half-dozen series of the 1980s sitcom In Sickness and in Health, which had the effect of cementing his career-long friendship with Warren Mitchell. He was memorable in Jack Pulman's 1981 television series Private Schulz as the acerbic Herr Krauss, an underwear salesman hoping the war would continue so as not to jeopardise his contracts with the German army.

Campbell in 1987 unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of the seventh doctor in Doctor Who. He was beaten to the role by his old protégé Sylvester McCoy. The then script editor, Andrew Cartmel, later revealed that Campbell's interpretation had been considered "too dark" to put on television. Other roles included that of the irritating Roger in The Anniversary episode of Fawlty Towers and the buck toothed antiques blackmailer Ted Goat in a 1993 episode of Lovejoy.

Campbell's radio career included playing Poodoo in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a part specifically written for him. The Radio 3 literary programme The Verb included Campbell as a regular contributor; in such spots as Campbell's Book Soup he became an upturner of bibliographic rocks, revealing unconsidered trifles to the hilarity of fellow contributors.

His film work included Ken Loach's Poor Cow, Derek Jarman's The Tempest (1979), Breaking Glass (1980), Chris Bernard's Letter to Brezhnev (1985), Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985), Charles Crichton's A Fish Called Wanda (1987), Saving Grace (2000) and Creep (2004).

In the final years of his life Campbell suddenly found himself cast in a whole new TV role: that of doggedly curious sceptic called upon to probe the outer realms of particle physics and cognitive science on behalf of the casual viewer, particularly where the science bordered on the paranormal. Campbell's idiosyncratic presentation in Brainspotting, Reality On the Rocks and Six Experiments that Changed the World, each made for Channel 4, owed much to the influence of one of his heroes, the American iconoclast Charles Fort. Campbell became a star turn at the annual Fortean Times convention, UnCon.