Kevin Jackson | |
---|---|
Born | London, England | 3 January 1955
Died | 10 May 2021 | (aged 66)
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | British |
Period | 1979–2021 |
Genre | Criticism, biography, cultural history |
Notable works | The Language of Cinema (1998) Humphrey Jennings (2004) Withnail & I (BFI Modern Classics) (2008) Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities (2000) |
Kevin Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) was an English writer, broadcaster, filmmaker and pataphysician.
He was educated at the Emanuel School,[1] Battersea, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent.[2] He was a freelance writer since the early 1990s[3] and was a regular contributor to BBC radio programmes,[4] including Radio 4's Saturday Review.[5]
Jackson often collaborated on projects with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with whom he co-produced a Channel 4 documentary on Humphrey Jennings, The Man Who Listened to Britain (2000); with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, on comic strips about the history of Western occultism for Fortean Times, on two comics inspired by John Ruskin (published by the Ruskin Foundation)[6] and on a book-length version of Dante's Inferno (Knockabout Books, 2012); with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (lyrics for various songs, and the rock opera Bite, first staged in West London, October 2011); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad (short surreal plays for BBC Radio 3 – eartoons). Jackson also conducted a long biographical interview with Blegvad, published by Atlas Press in September 2011 as The Bleaching Stream.[7] Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.[8] Worple Press published Jackson's book of interviews with Sinclair, The Verbals in 2002.[9]
He was among the founder members of the London Institute of 'Pataphysics,[10] and held the Ordre de la Grande Gidouille from the College de Pataphysique in Paris. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Companion of the Guild of St George. From 2009–2011 he was visiting professor in English at University College London.
Jackson died on 10 May 2021, at the age of 66.[11]
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