Ken Campbell's stage adaptation of Illuminatus! made very little money and drew only small crowds when it debuted in Liverpool, yet 50 years later it is remembered for launching the careers of household names including Jim Broadbent.
A Conspiracy-Theory Trilogy Comes to the Stage
The production drew on a range of famous conspiracy theories, including the assassination of JFK and the myth of Atlantis, alongside themes of fantasy, magic and drugs. The source material was a book trilogy written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in 1975. Just a year after its release, actor and director Ken Campbell decided to adapt it for the stage.
Peter O'Halligan was integral to bringing the play into existence. He transformed a warehouse on Mathew Street into the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun, now Flanagan's Apple bar. Alongside hosting local bands like Deaf School, Peter wanted to turn the space into a hub for performance and theatre. After being introduced to Ken Campbell via Allan Williams, the first manager of the Beatles, and Beryl Williams, he invited Ken to bring a project to the venue.
Building the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool
Ken recruited actor Chris Langham to form the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, a theatrical group featuring then-unknown names including Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Christopher Fairbank, David Rappaport, Neil Cunningham and Prunella Gee, who Ken later married.
Set design assistant Larry Sidorczuk, now a Liberal Democrat councillor for Wavertree Village, helped make the show possible. He told the ECHO: "The production was split into five individual plays, which were then knitted together on the Sunday to create what was then a 17-hour production. All scripted, not improvised. So you've got plays one to five: The Eye in the Pyramid was one, and then Swift Kicks Incorporated, two. Three was The Man Who Murdered God. Four was Walpurgisnacht Rock. And finally, the fifth play was Leviathan."
Stage Manager Chris Bernard's Memories
Chris Bernard, who would later direct the Liverpool film Letter to Brezhnev, was tasked with being stage manager on Illuminatus! at age 20. He said: "There wasn't a complete script, and it was getting pieced together and made, and things were lost and things were kept. It took me ages to actually get an actual script together, because photocopying and getting printed paper was magic to us, so it took me a long time to get a full script together."
Chris added: "Some nights through the run, I had to sit on the door as people came in, greet them, take the money off them, which was done in donations. So some people walked in for free, I was probably soft with people, I probably had people there going, 'Alright Chris, can we get in, lad? All of that was going on. We took very little money, and some nights, there wasn't a huge audience going down Mathew Street of a night back then."
Cast Members Who Became National Treasures
Most of the cast were at the very start of their careers. Chris said: "Jim Broadbent was in every second of it, Christopher Fairbank was there, Dave Rappaport, Chris Langham was huge, was absolutely huge."
Langham would go on to star in the BBC comedy series The Thick of It. His 2007 conviction for downloading and possessing images of child sexual abuse, for which he was jailed, effectively ended his career in mainstream TV. He died earlier this year.
Bill Nighy, then 26, was due to perform in Illuminatus! but could not because of an accident. Chris said: "He was due to perform but couldn't because he'd had an accident, he'd hurt his leg in some way. I only spoke with him a couple of times in Liverpool, in a bar one day where everyone in the cast was going for a drink."
He added: "That gentle soul that he is now was apparent back then. I remember sitting there and having a really lovely conversation, he was a strikingly good-looking guy as well, we just had a really interesting chat."
A Pivotal Moment for Jayne Casey
The play proved pivotal for Liverpool music legend Jayne Casey, who had played a small role. She said: "On the last night of the after-party, Ken pulled Bill Drummond [who had worked on the play] over, who was the set designer, and said, 'You've got to promise me, Bill, that you'll form a band and that she'll be the singer.' So eventually, Bill formed Big in Japan, and I was the singer. So we actually came out of Illuminatus!"
She added: "I was about 18, so I'd only left a children's home when I was 17, so I was very sort of young, naive, and it was just one of them mad experiences that you could never expect to happen."
Reflecting on the 50 years since, Larry said: "So much has been written about Illuminatus!, but we were just involved at the time, it was just the thing to do. There was a definite kind of zeitgeist, which helped to create this incredible energy."
Chris added: "I remember thinking these are the days. That's what we were saying. There was something about it, these are the days. But as a young 20-year-old when I when I first started, I didn't have a clue. It was just all over my head, I sort of learned as I went along."
In the months and years following its debut in Liverpool, Illuminatus! went on to the Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam, and it became the first play performed at the Cottesloe Theatre, National Theatre in March 1977.
