Biography

Roger Keen was born in London and lived in Dorset and the Midlands before settling in Plymouth in 1970. He attended Plymouth College of Art & Design and Bournemouth & Poole College of Art & Design, studying fine art, photography and film. Since then he has worked extensively in television, contributing to many award-winning programmes for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

In the ’80s he was involved in shows such as The World About Us and Wildlife On One for the BBC, and drama series such as Robin of Sherwood for ITV.  In more recent times he has concentrated on children's and educational programming, light entertainment and documentaries, several of which have won awards, such as the Wincott Foundation Broadcasting Award for Best Business Programme of the Year, Royal Television Society Awards, and Gold Awards in the 36th Worldfest-Houston International Film & Video festival.

Roger is also a feature writer and journalist, with articles, interviews and reviews—mainly on the subjects of film and literature—appearing in various magazines, including Critical Wave, Writer's Monthly, The Third Alternative, Dementia 13 and Prism.  He also wrote short stories in the '90s, several of which appeared in magazines of that era, such as Psychotrope, Threads, Sierra Heaven, Flickers 'n' Frames and Saccade.  Currently he does review and feature work for several webzines, including The Digital Fix, DVD Times, The Zone, Video Vista and Infinityplus.

The memoir The Mad Artist covers Roger's student years, from 1975–79:

It is the final fruit of literary experiments I was doing in the 1970s and ’80s attempting to fuse autobiography and fiction in postmodern ways, very much under the influence of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, James Joyce and others. Those experiments were inconclusive and the various projects drifted, but much more recently, with the benefit of considerably lengthened perspectives, I came up with the idea of forming the material into a nostalgic memoir, approaching the reality/fiction-fusion element from the non-fiction side of the fence and making my literary experiments part of the story, hence the title. 

The Mad Artist cover photo

Roger Keen directing a college movie in Bournemouth.

Putting it in broad terms, these researchers explored the use of hallucinogenic drugs in tribal shamanism and came to striking conclusions about their influence on the formation of religions—such as in the case of Soma in the Rig Veda—and philosophy—as in the case of the Mystery of Eleusis, involving Plato and others.

All this provided a heady brew for psychedelic drug users in what was a very colourful time in British life, when the mature hippy era was just being supplanted by the fashions and attitudes of punk, the Stonehenge Festival was huge, students were given state money for nothing and life was generally more carefree and easy… Until that fateful day in May ’79 when the dreaded Mrs T. took over and everything began to change for the worse—an event recorded in great detail in the book.