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Saturday, March 12, 2005

Dave Allen (6 July 1936 - 10 March 2005) RIP - "Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never - I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever."

Irish comic and satirist Dave Allen died in his sleep on Thursday. "Goodnight, thank you, and may your god go with you."

His target was hypocrisy about sex and religion — and he regularly ridiculed his Roman Catholic roots. The former journalist (he had a brief stint as a reporter on The Drogheda Argus) had his first taste of television came on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959. He toured Australia in 1963 and was invited to host his own TV chatshow, Tonight with Dave Allen. It ran for 18 months, despite a controversial episode in which he discussed the merits of masturbation with guests Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. He returned to the UK in 1964 and the first episode of the British version of Tonight with Dave Allen went on air four years later. In 1971, BBC2 commissioned Dave Allen at Large, a mixture of straight-to-camera monologues and sketches.
With his background in journalism, Allen's style as a comic emphasised information, presented with a surreal slant. Some called him the "Irish Lenny Bruce" and he was considered one of the first alternative comedians, telling risqué jokes about sex and religion, and his use of strong language even led to questions being asked in the House of Commons. Asked to describe himself in an interview in 1998, he said: "I'm a grumpy old fuck with a sense of humour." He once quipped: “You spend your life working to a point where you don’t have to work. When you reach that point, people say, ‘Why aren’t you working’?”

- He stopped smoking "60 a day" in the 1980s, saying he was fed up with "paying people to kill me."

- On the West End stage:

"In case you wonder what I do," he would tell the audience, "I tend to stroll around and chat. I'd be grateful if you'd refrain from doing the same."

- On TV, his genius was to hold audiences with random observations, such as "Skin is very interesting," spinning into a full-blown but well-honed monologue, with the odd forbidden word. This got him into hot water, especially after he raved on about how lives were dominated by time:

"We spend our lives on the run: we get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A fucking clock."

Robert Haywood, a Tory MP, tabled a Commons question asking the then Home Secretary, David Waddington, to raise the incident with the BBC.
Allen, ever urbane and relaxed, remarked: "Language is there to be used. If you sanitise it, you take everything out of it."

- Ian Davidson, a writer who worked for a decade with Allen, said: "He had so much anger, especially against the priesthood - and that was where he got his energy. He also had a keen sense of the absurd.
"I enjoyed the tales about how he lost part of his finger. I could always tell they were lies. No one knows how he really lost part of his finger." (Allen made a comedy prop of his left index finger — where only a stump remained after a childhood accident.)

- Barry Cryer: "He was so serious and committed, but he proved you could be serious and funny he was our Bill Hicks."

- Frank Skinner: “Dave Allen was a classy, intelligent comic. He was awesome. His punchlines came between swigs.”

- Eddie Izzard said: "He was an original. He carved his own path. I think he was the first alternative stand-up to have his own show on TV, and he was a torch-bearer for all the excellent Irish comics who have followed in recent years.
"I’m glad that his material has just been released on DVD, as it can now be added to the British/Irish library of comedy greats."

-Alan Yentob, said: "I am very shocked and sad to hear of Dave’s death. There was no-one like him - the stool, the smile, the cigarette, the hand gesture, the slow burn. He was a master storyteller, a real original."

- Rik Mayall said: "I’m deeply saddened to hear of Dave Allen’s death. He was an absolute hero from childhood."

- Television producer Paul Jackson, who became friends with Allen after working with him at ITV, remembered the comedian as a "fabulous storyteller".
"You remember his love of argument and complexity," Mr Jackson said yesterday. "He told stories not jokes and through those stories he observed human nature so precisely and was angry at the things in life that should make you angry. He railed against the stupidity of the world and gave voice to a lot of things people think but don't say."

- Allen's agent for 27 years, Vivienne Clore, said the comedian had been unwell over Christmas, but had recovered and was not suffering any life-threatening illnesses. He was still considering new projects at the time of his death and enjoying his garden at his home in west London. He would have been "pissed off" to be described as in semi-retirement.
"He had a natural curiosity about everything and everyone and would build up a close relationship with everyone he worked with."

- Obituaries: Guardian; Telegraph; Scotsman; BBC Report; BBC Tributes; Sun;
- Dave Allen - in his own words - Guardian
- Links: Screen Online biography

Posted by Nick @ 08:30 GMT

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