Keith Allen

[BeardFaceMan]

Here's a cool pic though.

Give me Kevin any day of the week.

[Virgo76]

There's a good anecdote in one of Alexei Sayle's memoirs about him starting a riot in a club.
Worth remembering he's a genuinely good actor.
A Very British Coup.
Bodies
The Inspector Morse he was in.

[buzby]

Here's a cool pic though.

With his then-wife Alison Owen (who was 6 months pregnant with Lily at the time) on the set of The Supergrass. Shortly after her birth he started an affair with a Brigadier's wife while he was away filming Comrades in Dorset.

[Brundle-Fly]

Seems there's a bit of a 'pics or it didn't happen' element to this. There's not exactly *lots* of footage of early Rik/Ade/Pete/Nige, there were some bootleg-quality tape recordings released for the motorway service station market in the mid-late 90s, and there was that Julien Temple film. Keith's absence from these could be because he didn't strive to be associated with the venue/movement as much as the others, and that he wasn't as regular or reliable a turn.

In the thesis Stand-Up Comedy and Everyday Life: Post-War British Comedy and the Subversive Strain (http://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28986/1/thesis_RitchieC_1998.pdf), it is noted that Tony Allen "cites Keith Allen (no relation) as injecting much of the early energy and politics into the Comedy Store." (Although there weren't many enterprising owners of late-70s camcorders capturing Tony Allen's early stand-up for posterity either, so maybe his significance is equally suspect.) It also notes of Rik and Ade: "After the Comedy Store opened in May, 1979, they eventually became regular performers as part of the "second wave" of comedians and comics, following Sayle, Keith Allen and Tony Allen and the more stand-up oriented performers."

There's also this testimony from Alexei's blog (http://www.alexeisayle.me/home/2010/2/3/blog-no-29.html): "if I'm honest I have to say that seeing the young Keth (sic) Allen was an extraordinary experience, this was the first time I saw a comic that you were genuinely frightened of. One early gig we did at Goldsmiths College he threw darts at the audience and then attacked them with a fire extinguisher, another night at the Albany Empire he upset a table full of Poles on the night that martial law was declared in their country. I think he influenced me more than I admitted either to myself or him at the time, his problem was that he either couldn't or didn't want to reproduce the same performance night after night so that sometimes he would just be bad."

There's also one citation online for a nice Jerry Sadowitz quote, though its origin isn't attributed: "In 1979 Keith Allen, Tony Allen and Alexei Sayle opened the door to a whole new way of thinking about comedy. And in 1981, Ben Elton closed it."

Thank you. I needed a bit more hard evidence to back me up on this.

[Brundle-Fly]

With his then-wife Alison Owen (who was 6 months pregnant with Lily at the time) on the set of The Supergrass. Shortly after her birth he started an affair with a Brigadier's wife while he was away filming Comrades in Dorset.

That is pretty cunty, given.

[Solid Jim]

Wilmut & Rosengard's Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law? (Methuen, 1989) states that Keith Allen spent about 14 months doing stand-up at the Comedy Store, having previously been part of a surrealist theatre troupe. It helpfully provides a couple of transcripts:

I've read a lot of books, you see, I've read a lot of books - I have to, because I'm a performer; I've got to have knowledge, access to knowledge, to communicate with people. And I've read these books, and these books tell me that all the revolutionary movements start out in the countryside - see? China - all the peasants uprising, out in the countryside, moving towards the city. Cambodia - Chile - (it's only an act, settle down) - and I learned that all the revolutionary movements start out in the countryside, so I thought, right, get out of town, and get out in the country - and I did, I went down to Dorset. And there's fuck all happening in Dorset of a revolutionary nature, nothing at all. And I was a bit upset, obviously, because I'd just paid for a ticket on the train [...] and suddenly I saw what was quite possibly the most moving thing I've ever seen in my life... I was in this field - and I saw a load of horses without policemen on. I couldn't believe it - herds of horses and not a bank robber in sight! (What am I talking about - you idiot!...) No policemen, but bank robbers everywhere! Bank robbers all over the place! And they're not like the city bank robbers, the ones out in the country, they're truly revolutionary by nature, because they wander around - they've got no fear - they don't wear stockings over their heads, they wear these funny hats, with peaks on - you can see their faces - and they've got these shotguns with extra bits welded onto 'em. And anything that moves, shoot it.

The SAS - the Squatters' Advisory Service - I don't know if you've noticed, but the SAS are extremely adept at keeping a low profile. I know why: their heads unscrew. It's true - they actually come off their bodies. Now I don't know if many of you people have been to Wales, in your second cottages or whatever - what's left of 'em - but if you have you've probably seen some very odd sights. Namely, a bunch of nutters running around the Welsh hills... with no heads. This is the SAS out on manoeuvres - getting fit and strong, you see. And while they're out on manoeuvres, all the heads are back at secret HQ... and it's not a very big secret... and what they do, they keep the heads in these buckets of cool dog's piss - just to keep them in the right condition, see. And what they do, they've got the most marvellous educational techniques - it's not enough to be a fucking hatchet-man - you've got to have the brains to do it nowadays. They've got lecture theatres on camp - but they're a bit different from the ones we've come across - because there are no seats. Instead, what they've got is rows and rows of poles - with screw threads. And what they do is, they take the heads out of stores, and they march them over to the theatre in the buckets of cool dog's piss, then screw them on the poles like that... and then they play them old Roy Rogers movies. Just to make sure they're getting the right training, you see. Now, I don't know if you saw the show - marvellous little show - on the TV for us, about the storming of the Iranian Embassy; now, I'm an ordinary punter, much like yourselves, and what I don't understand is, how these blokes - who can save us from every known crisis in the world today - can't get over a two-foot gap on a balcony without fucking ropes and ladders.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I remember some story (it may have been Popbitch) where Lily had been thrown out of The Groucho Club for doing coke, and Keith stormed up to the management and said "Look, I've been taking cocaine in the toilets here for over twenty years. If I'm allowed to do it, then my fucking daughter should be allowed to as well".

[Mister Six]

All right, that's pretty funny.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Oliver Double's Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up also supports what Brundle-Fly said.






There are a few other bits about him in that book. AT's link to Christopher Ritchie's thesis redirects to the Alexei Sayle blog so here that is again:

http://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28986/1/thesis_RitchieC_1998.pdf

[turnstyle]

Poll results have been counted - unanimous verdict by 100% of poll participants is that Keith Allen is in fact, a cunt.

[dothestrand]

I remember his documentaries being the complete opposite to Theroux's (they both covered the Westboro Baptist nutters). Rather than giving the subject rope to hang themselves with, Allen just went in like a bull in a china shop and told them they were c***s.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

.

[Brundle-Fly]

You'll live. Merry Cuntmass.

[lauraxsynthesis]

Has a video of that Establishment Club programme from 2019 still not emerged on the dark web?
https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/the_establishment_club/cast_crew/

[jenna appleseed]

Still can't get over the fact you could buy Keith Allen action figures in Tescos of him as the Sherif in Robin Hood. (still wish I'd bought one). eta: now having a vague memory that the postion of the hands of the one I saw vaguely looked like he was mid going "wanker".

Anyone remember him in Mobile?
- which at the time was great in a real 'this is never going to be broadcast again' & 'is it meant to be this funny?' way.
Strong

Spoiler alert

pre-twist

[close]

similarities to anarchist fiction by Ian Bone (that used to be online but I can't find any longer) too.

Spoiler alert

guy with terminal cancer/a brain tumour using that as catalyst to just go ahead and kill capitalists/Tories.

[close]

[phantom_power]

Ah remember when people thought mobile phones would kill them with radiation rather than brain worms

[lauraxsynthesis]

Anyone remember him in Mobile?

Wow, what a cast. I want to see that. I see it's on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VyxTOC0Gu0

[maett]

Wasn't his sketch show one of the first comedy shows made for UK satellite TV? I've never met anyone who's seen it.

We haven't met, but I did watch it. I remember a character called Larry 'Ringside' Lewis (I think) and a gay northern character in bondage. It seemed okay to me, but it was 32 years ago and I was doing lots of acid.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Wow, what a cast. I want to see that. I see it's on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VyxTOC0Gu0

Just watched all 3 parts over the past two nights.Well worth watching, especially the wrong- footing opening episode, with Neil Fitzmaurice being given star billing, and putting in a pretty strong performance at that. John Thomson plays a not terribly convincing psychotherapist

Spoiler alert

although there's a good reason for that. John Thomson *is* a crap actor, though.

[close]

Keith Allen very convincing in his role as a nasty cunt.

[bushwick]

He took his clothes off at my mate's stag do in 2005. I like the guy myself. Good actor/writer and has an interesting brain on him.

[steveh]

In the second volume of his autobiography, Alexei Sayle mentions his continual problems as an MC in stopping Keith Allen getting his kit off...

[studpuppet]

Happy to go stark bollock naked for Shallow Grave (link as NSFW).

https://cdn-men.aznude.com/keithallen/shallowgrave/Shallow-allen-hd-01-gigantic-4.jpg

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

He's very hairy and fairly short. I can't really comment on his penis. Looks reasonable I suppose.

Never really understood why he had to be naked in that scene. Was he struggling to find an arm vein to shoot up in so he went the whole hog and took all his clothes off to find one?