Jack Birkett
Encyclopedia
Jack Birkett was a British
dancer, mime artist
, actor
and singer, best known for his work on stage as a member of Lindsay Kemp
's theatre company, and in the films of Derek Jarman
. He was often billed as Orlando or The Incredible Orlando. Most of his best-known work was done when he was totally blind
.
. His mother came from a Romani family; his father left home when he was six. Birkett attended Coldcotes School in Gipton
until the age of 14, developing a passion for ballet
. He worked as an artist's model
for David Hockney
and others, before finding work at the Grand Theatre
in Leeds in 1950 as a stage hand and lighting technician
. Soon afterwards, he moved to London
, working as a dancer and singer in touring shows and musicals, including the UK tour of Oklahoma!
in 1952.
at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
. According to Kemp,
Both Kemp and Birkett were flamboyant homosexuals. Kemp later wrote:
He made his West End theatre
debut in Bye Bye Birdie in 1961, and also worked with Kemp's company from the early 1960s, taking part in the first Lindsay Kemp Dance Mime Company performances in 1965 that culminated in Illuminations. When working with Kemp in Italy
in 1966, he began to lose his sight, attempting a variety of cures ranging from surgery to bee-stings. He nevertheless became entirely blind, but responded by growing more extreme in his performances and his persona. He played the part of Blackbird in Kemp's production of Flowers, based on Jean Genet
's Our Lady of the Flowers
, which briefly transferred from London to Broadway
in 1974, and he continued to tour worldwide with Kemp until the late 1980s.
Described as "a muscular blind man with a completely shaven head", in performances of Turquoise Pantomime:
. These included portrayals of Borgia Ginz in Jarman's Jubilee
(1978), Caliban
in Jarman's version of The Tempest
(1979) and Thersites
in Jonathan Miller
's Troilus and Cressida
(1981) - part of the BBC Television Shakespeare
series, in which Birkett delivered his lines in the manner of a drag queen
. He also played the Pope
in Jarman's Caravaggio
(1986), and Pontius in The Garden (1990). He also appeared in the Spanish
films El vent de l'illa (1988) and El niño de la luna
(1989).
and finally in London. He studied shiatsu
, and his health began to weaken. He was supported by long-time partner, Nyako Nakar, a Spanish writer and artist. He died in London in 2010 at the age of 75.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
dancer, mime artist
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
and singer, best known for his work on stage as a member of Lindsay Kemp
Lindsay Kemp
Lindsay Kemp is a British dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist and choreographer.Born in South Shields on May 3, 1938, Kemp's father, a seaman, was lost at sea in 1940. According to Kemp, he danced from early childhood: "I'd dance on the kitchen table to entertain the neighbours. I mean, it was a...
's theatre company, and in the films of Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
. He was often billed as Orlando or The Incredible Orlando. Most of his best-known work was done when he was totally blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
Life and career
He was born in LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. His mother came from a Romani family; his father left home when he was six. Birkett attended Coldcotes School in Gipton
Gipton
Gipton is a suburb of East Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, between the A58 to the north and the A64 to the south. It is joined with Harehills as a City Council Ward...
until the age of 14, developing a passion for ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
. He worked as an artist's model
Model (art)
Art models are models who pose for photographers, painters, sculptors, and other artists as part of their work of art. Art models who pose in the nude for life drawing are usually called life models...
for David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
and others, before finding work at the Grand Theatre
Grand Theatre Leeds
The Grand Theatre is a theatre and Opera house in the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was designed by James Robinson Watson, chief assistant in the office of Leeds-based architect George Corson, and opened on 18 November 1878...
in Leeds in 1950 as a stage hand and lighting technician
Lighting technician
Lighting technicians are involved with rigging and controlling electric lights for art and entertainment venues or in video, television, or film production. In a theater production, lighting technicians work under the lighting designer and master electrician...
. Soon afterwards, he moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, working as a dancer and singer in touring shows and musicals, including the UK tour of Oklahoma!
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
in 1952.
With Kemp
In 1956 he met Lindsay Kemp, when they were both doing ballet classes with Marie RambertMarie Rambert
Dame Marie Rambert DBE was a Polish-Jewish dancer and dance pedagogue who exerted a great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher.- Early years and background :...
at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
The Mercury Theatre was a small theatre in Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill Gate, London, notable for the productions of poetic dramas between 1933 and 1956, and as the home of the Ballet Rambert until 1987.- History :...
. According to Kemp,
"We were always scraping a living in those early days, often working as stage hands, cooks and cleaners. Sometimes we hitchhiked from venue to venue, carrying our costumes and props."
Both Kemp and Birkett were flamboyant homosexuals. Kemp later wrote:
"Jack was Judy to my Mr Punch, Harlequin to my Pierrot, Titania to my Puck, Herodias to my Salomé, Queen of Hearts to my Lewis Carroll. We shared flats, dressing rooms, boyfriends, bills, good times and bad times, success and failure; a couple of extravagant young dreamers, a couple of aching elders, always entertainers."
He made his West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
debut in Bye Bye Birdie in 1961, and also worked with Kemp's company from the early 1960s, taking part in the first Lindsay Kemp Dance Mime Company performances in 1965 that culminated in Illuminations. When working with Kemp in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in 1966, he began to lose his sight, attempting a variety of cures ranging from surgery to bee-stings. He nevertheless became entirely blind, but responded by growing more extreme in his performances and his persona. He played the part of Blackbird in Kemp's production of Flowers, based on Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
's Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers is the debut novel of French writer Jean Genet, first published in 1943. The free-flowing, poetic novel is a largely autobiographical account of a man's journey through the Parisian underworld...
, which briefly transferred from London to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1974, and he continued to tour worldwide with Kemp until the late 1980s.
Described as "a muscular blind man with a completely shaven head", in performances of Turquoise Pantomime:
"Birkett would be led quietly on stage, dressed in black fishnet stockings and a pink waspie. Suddenly he would belt out I Want A Man while a restrained Kemp would occupy himself pulling invisible wires from his ears and wiping non-existent dogshit from his satin shoes."
Film and Television work
Birkett also made a number of TV and film appearances, notably in the work of Derek JarmanDerek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
. These included portrayals of Borgia Ginz in Jarman's Jubilee
Jubilee (1977 film)
Jubilee is a 1977 cult film directed by Derek Jarman. It stars Jenny Runacre, Ian Charleson, and a host of punk rockers. The title refers to the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977.-Plot:...
(1978), Caliban
Caliban
Caliban is a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.Caliban may also refer to:* Caliban , a moon of Uranus* Caliban , a metalcore band from Germany* Caliban , an acoustic Celtic folk duo...
in Jarman's version of The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
(1979) and Thersites
Thersites
In Greek mythology, Thersites was a soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. In the Iliad, he does not have a father's name, which may suggest that he should be viewed as a commoner rather than an aristocratic hero...
in Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
's Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus...
(1981) - part of the BBC Television Shakespeare
BBC Television Shakespeare
The BBC Television Shakespeare was a set of television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985.-Origins:...
series, in which Birkett delivered his lines in the manner of a drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
. He also played the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
in Jarman's Caravaggio
Caravaggio (film)
Caravaggio is a British film directed by Derek Jarman. The film is a fictionalized re-telling of the life of Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.-Plot:...
(1986), and Pontius in The Garden (1990). He also appeared in the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
films El vent de l'illa (1988) and El niño de la luna
Moon Child (1989 film)
Moon Child is a 1989 Spanish fantasy film directed by Agustí Villaronga. It was entered into the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Maribel Martín - Victoria* Lisa Gerrard - Georgina* Enrique Saldana - David* Lucia Bosé - Directora* David Sust - Edgar...
(1989).
Retirement
He later retired from performing, living in BarcelonaBarcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and finally in London. He studied shiatsu
Shiatsu
Shiatsu is Japanese for "finger pressure;" it is a type of alternative medicine consisting of finger and palm pressure, stretches, and other massage techniques. There is no scientific evidence proving that shiatsu can treat any disease, but shiatsu practitioners promote it as a way to help people...
, and his health began to weaken. He was supported by long-time partner, Nyako Nakar, a Spanish writer and artist. He died in London in 2010 at the age of 75.