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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Ken Campbell: The Great Caper

Book of the Week: Ken Campbell: The Great Caper: Episode 3

Factual: Life Stories

Ken Campbell: The Great Caper

Episode 3

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Ken Campbell: The Great Caper, Episode 3

The nine-hour drama 'Illuminatus!' becomes Ken Campbell's first epic production.

Campbell's Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool presents his first epic, the nine-hour drama 'Illuminatus'. Read by Toby Jones.

Michael Coveney's biography tells the story of Campbell, the great adventurer of British theatre.

Campbell's Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool presents his first epic, the nine-hour drama 'Illuminatus'.

Ken Campbell, who died in September 2008, was one of the great mavericks of British theatre.
Ill-suited to a role in conventional theatre, he created a risk-taking confrontational style of performance, which often explored unlikely subject matter.

He became, in director Mike Leigh's words, "The outsider's outsider"

Bob Hoskins, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent are amongst the performers whose formative years were spent working with Campbell. What did the director and producer bring to performance that made him such a mesmeric figure?

Writer Michael Coveney is a long-standing theatre critic, who has worked for The Financial Times, The Observer and The Daily Mail. Actor Toby Jones played Truman Capote in 'Infamous' and Swifty Lazar in 'Frost/Nixon' and recently reprised the role of Dobby in the film 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. Toby has also appeared in a production of 'The Warp' by Neil Oram, the 22-hour epic created by Ken Campbell.

Read by Toby Jones 
Abridged by Pete Nichols 


Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Michael Coveney's biography tells the story of the great adventurer of British theatre

Michael Coveney's biography tells the story of the great adventurer of British theatre. Read by Toby Jones

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