Ken Campbell Page 2
This tells you what Ken's been up to since I last wrote about him, and shows some pictures I've just videocaptured.
During 1998, Ken has embarked on two projects, or one or three, depending on how you
separate them. He has toured the country with an update of Theatre Stories, which tells anecdotes
about Ken's career and life in the theatre. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform this at The
Richmond Theatre on the 29th June and he was spellbinding. I can't recall falling asleep even
once. He did cheat slightly, by incorporating some material from Violin Time (about David De
Nil and his trip to the New Hebrides to perform one Ken Dodd's routines).
About David De Nil
...let me explain:
Ken was putting on a performance of Warp, his lengthy play, which featured an actor called
David De Nil. David was what Ken calls a 'minimalist actor', one who had a quality of seeming
to make the stage seem more exciting once he'd left than when he was on it. Ken thought this
was very useful at times, because if a bit of the play seemed too melodramatic or over the top,
the just brought David on stage to compensate! Now Ken had a dream about David, worrying
about how he might develop as an actor whilst handicapped by his singular lack of stage presence. In the dream,
David went to see every show Ken Dodd appeared in for a year. Rather than just recount his
dream as a casual remark, Ken (Campbell) decided that he would give David a choice. He said
he would either tell him about the dream and he would have to go and do whatever the dream
said, or he would not tell him what happened. David (presumably knowing Ken well enough to
be cautious) managed to restrain himself for a couple of days, then finally asked Ken what his
dream was about. Ken explained, and David resigned himself to a year of Doddy-following.
Dutifully, he saw Ken at all his engagements in working men's clubs, Town Halls, end-of-the-
pier shows, pantomimes, and variety shows. At the last show of his tour of the U.K., Doddy had
a party with all the backstage staff to celebrate the end of a successful run. He had noticed David
in the audience (perhaps Ken C.'s prescribed therapy was working!), and decided to invite him
as well. Ken asked David why he was coming to see all his shows and was told the full story.
Ken said "Well if you want to see my next show, it might be a little difficult, it's in Efate in the
New Hebrides". After realising that The New Hebrides was in fact in the Pacific, not near the
English Outer Hebrides, David scraped together enough money to go. On his arrival, he realised that
there was no sign of Doddy, it had been a joke all the time. So with a week to spend there with nothing to do, David decided to tour the islands with Ken Dodd's show, which by now he knew off by heart! He did of course have to translate it into Wol Won Tok, or Pidgin English, which
is where we came in.
Pidgin And The World Language
Spoken by the natives of the Faroe Islands in the New Hebrides, this is a language based partly
on English, partly on French, miscellaneous words from other languages and partly on
portmanteau words from one or more languages.
Ken has always been fascinated with the notion that we might have a world international
language by the year 2000. This arbitrary deadline is applied to a lot of things, mainly because
it is a round number, and added was useful in creating catchy slogans. Whilst it might have been
appropriate twenty years ago, or even ten years ago to use 2000 as a deadline, it is becoming
increasingly difficult to get anything done by then (I have tentatively decided to adopt Deadline
2000 as the slogan for my house decoration project). Previous attempts have either been based
no us all using an established language, like English (or more properly, American), or
Japanese, on the basis that these languages are spoken by a large proportion of the world
anyway, specifically in financial and commercial centres. These ideas have met with a lot of
resistance on the grounds of nationalism, or xenophobia, and also because of the complexity of
the languages. The other idea has been to get people to learn a new language based on existing
European languages, such as Vollapuk or Esperanto. These languages are already handicapped
by the fact that no-one speaks them as a first language. They are still popular only with
minority groups, and are easy to learn only if your first language is European (or to a lesser
extent Indo-European).
One suggestion for World Language 2000 would herald a return to the past. Latin is still widely
used by professionals all over the world, as well as by scientists, and has a recognised format.
The language is over-complicated, however, as anyone who has studied Latin at school (or
watched Life Of Brian) will know. There would also be problems over pronunciation, with one
disagreements on whether the language should be pronounced as Oxford or Cambridge would
have it.
Another alternative is to use sign language. This would be easily learned all the world over, is
already a 'first' language with deaf and dumb people and a second language for may deaf or hard
of hearing people. Unfortunately, there are different types of sign language, the most popular
being BSL (British Sign Language) and ASL (American Sign Language). There are others in
other countries. Nevertheless, with a bit of international goodwill and co-operation, it would be
possible to develop a worldwide standard in Sign Language. The advantage this language has
over any of the other possibilities is that it is not a written language, and is therefore more
mutable than other languages (we must not lose sight of the fact that English and other languages
are still evolving, even in 1998). The Manuals and guidelines would have to be changed, and
some computer programmes and instructional video's would have to be completely discarded,
however this would be a small price to pay for the reward of an international language by the
year 2000.
...Which brings us back to Ken. Ken's idea is that Wol Won Tok is used as an international
language because it has very small vocabulary, no tenses, no cases, and the minimum of gender
changes. So for example Prince Philip becomes 'Nambawan Bigfala him blong Missus Queen' (Number one big fellow him belong Mrs.Queen). One of Ken's finest examples of the language (which he told at his Violin Time recital
and Theatre Stories (1998 revision)) is his translation of a well-known Ken Dodd joke into Pidgin English, courtesy of David De Nil. It's the one about the cucmber and the letterbox, and I'm blown if I can remember the translation (or find the book it's in!). So if anyone can remember it, please mail me at the address below!
Makbed
Ken's other example of WolWontok is the Shakespeare play 'Macbeth', which Ken has 'translated' into
WolWonTok for a national and international tour. I would have loved to have gone to see this,
but could not afford tickets, so sadly there is no review of it on this page. I did however see a
small extract from it at Theatre Stories '98, performed with much aplomb (and, it has to be said,
with sign language to aid interpretation!) by Tom Conti's daughter. It looked as though it was
capable of sustaining the attention of the audience for the entire duration of the play, partly of
course because the source material was good, and partly because of the quality of the
performance. Whether the use of Wolwontok is going to be ubiquitous by the end of the Year
2000 (let's give him the benefit of the doubt and take it to the end of the millennium rather than
the year the digits tick over) I don't know, but at least in the meantime, we and thousands of
millions of people in other countries can enjoy the play in a manner in which we can all
understand.
Ken Links:
My pal Ian Shuttleworth's reviews (And an interview)
Take a look at Merryfela's Page which has a lot about Ken and Ken Campbellish interests.
Ian Potter's Ken Page with a 20 minute realaudio clip from Theatre Stories and some great pictures
Ken Campbell - A Living Legend.
I picked this one up from a Search Engine - it certainly seems to be by our Ken Campbell.
As does this Link.
This German site appears to have something to do with Ken too :-)
Mail me about Ken: dfarmbrough@cix.co.uk.
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