Kevin Jackson

Kevin Alec Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) was an English writer, broadcaster, filmmaker and pataphysician.

Background Kevin Alec Jackson was born in Balham, London, on 3 January 1955, to Alec and Alma (née Rolfe) Jackson, of Clapham. He was educated at the Emanuel School, Battersea, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio programmes, including Radio 4's Saturday Review.

Jackson often collaborated on projects with, among others, the filmmaker 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) 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 in September 2011 by Atlas Press as The Bleaching Stream. 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. Worple Press published Jackson's book of interviews with Sinclair, The Verbals in 2002.

He was among the founder members of the London Institute of 'Pataphysics, 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.

Select bibliography

As author

The Language of Cinema, published by Routledge Press 1998 Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities, published by St Martin's Press 2000 Building the Great Pyramid, Published by Firefly Books 2003 Letters of Introduction, Published by Carcanet Press Ltd 2004 Humphrey Jennings, Published by Picador Press 2004 A Ruskin Alphabet, Published by Worple Press 2000 Withnail & I (BFI Modern Classics), 2008 Lawrence of Arabia (BFI Modern Classics), 2007 Fast, 2006 Moose, Published by Reaktion Books 2009 Bite: A Vampire Handbook, Published by Portobello Books Ltd 2010 The Pataphysical Flook, 2007 The Worlds of John Ruskin, Published by Pallas Athene Arts 2009 Chronicles of Old London, Published by Museyon Guides 2012 Constellation of Genius, Published by Hutchinson Press 2012 Nosferatu (1922): eine Symphonie des Grauens (BFI Film Classics), published by British Film Institute 2013 Carnal, published by Pallas Athene Arts 2015 Mayflower: The Voyage from Hell published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2020 Darwin’s Odyssey: The Voyage of the Beagle published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2020 The Queen’s Pirate: Sir Francis Drake and the Golden Hind published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2019 Nelson’s Victory: Trafalgar and Tragedy published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2021

As editor

Schrader on Schrader, 2004 The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader, Published by Carcanet Press 2005 The Oxford Book of Money, 1995 The Risk of Being Alive. Dylan Francis The Anatomy of Melancholy. (Robert Burton), 2004 Revolutionary Sonnets and Other Poems (Anthony Burgess), 2003 The Book of Hours, 2007 Aussie Dans Le Metro: A Festschrift for John Baxter (privately published: Alces Press, 2009),

As co-editor

Pataphysics: Definitions and Citations. (with Alastair Brotchie, Stanley Chapman and Thieri Foulc), 2003

Filmography

Shorts

Bite: Diary of a Vampire Housewife, 2009 Bite: Pavane for a Vampire Queen, 2011 No More a-Roving (Vampire Mix), 2011 Exquisite Corpse (from the novel by Robert Irwin), 2011 The Last of the Vostyachs (from the novel by Diego Marani), 2012 Constellation of Genius, 2012 Dracbeth, 2014 Carnal to the Point of Scandal, 2015