Topher Campbell

Topher Campbellis filmmaker, theatre maker and writer. His work focuses on sexuality, masculinity, race, human rights, memoir and climate change. He is a former artistic director of The Red Room Theatre Company and past chair of the Independent Theatre Council UK. He is a recipient of the 2005 Jerwood Directors Award and is co-founder of rukus! Federation a Black LGBTQ Charity.In 2017 he was Longlisted for the Inaugural Spread the Word Life Writing Prize for his forthcoming memoir Battyman.  In 2000 he co-founded rukus! Federation a Black Queer arts charity with photographer Ajamu X. This culminated in the internationally recognised rukus! Archive currently held in the London Metropolitan Archives. His films have appeared in festivals worldwide including his first film The Homecoming a meditation on art Black masculinity and sexuality. His latest film FETISH, a collaboration with 2014 Mercury Music Prize Winners Young Fathers is an audacious naked performance shot on the streets of New York. As actor Topher has starred in Isaac Julien’s Trussed, Campbell X’s Stud Life and Ian Poitier’s Oh Happy Day.Topher is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Patron of Switchboard. In 2017 Topher was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Sussex for his work in the arts and Black LGBTQ advocacy. It is the first Honorary Doctorate to be given to an openly Black Gay man in the UK.

Career

rukus! Federation

In 2000, alongside artist/photographer Ajamu X, he set up rukus! Federation Ltd. A company dedicated to presenting the best in work by Black Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual, Transgender (BLGBT) artists, rukus! projects include the play Mangina Monologues and the UK's first and only Black LGBTQ Archive now housed at the London Metropolitan Archive. In 2008 rukus! received the Archive Landmark Award by the London Metropolitan Archives.

Radio

• Talking Huck Finn (2001) – BBC Radio 4
• Facing Leicester Square (2002) BBC Radio 3

Plays

• Blood Knot (Derby Playhouse) (1990)
• Woza Albert (1991)
• Necklaces (Talawa Theatre Company) (1992)
• Flamingo Theatre London (1992)
• Moor Masterpieces (West Yorkshire Playhouse) (1996)
• Wicked Games – (West Yorkshire Playhouse) (1996)
• Good Copy – (West Yorkshire Playhouse) (1996)
• Jar the Floor – (West Yorkshire Playhouse) (1997)
• Pantheaon of the Gods – (Young Vic Theatre) (2001)
• Dead Funny – (Nottingham Playhouse) (2001)
• Unstated (2008)
• Oikos (2010)
• Protozoa (2010)