Blog No. 29
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 10:24PM Yes, yes vote for me, vote for me! How am I doing? I was thrilled with my 18th place in that Channel 4 poll a few years ago even though I haven’t done standup for 14 years now. In the time when I used to win lots of awards I was terribly dismissive and didn’t even turn up to get my Broadcast Press Award or RTS Best Comedy now I long for the validation of strangers. I’m not being sarcastic I really do, preferably I’d take one of those literary awards but anything will do, I'd take up smoking a pipe if they'd make me Pipe Smoker of the Year.
That’s an interesting question who Alexei rates as a grade A stand up comic. Well of course on one level Alexei never rated anybody as a grade A stand up comic except himself but if I’m honest I have to say that seeing the young Keth 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. Jerry Sadowitz was the same, the first time I saw him, the self-lacerating rage of his performance was inspiring and he really was in many ways the best thing I’ve ever seen but then the next time I took a quite conservative French woman friend to see him at some small theatre in the West End and he was naked the whole show which was pretty horrific but worse than that he wasn’t funny at all.
Just to prove its not just aggression I like, there was one particular tour Victoria Wood did, maybe early 90s, when she was really on it, I saw her at the Albert Hall I think and she’d done hundreds of gigs in the previous couple of years which had made her incredibly sharp. Robin Williams used to turn up at the Comedy Store and the Comic Strip and was also hugely influential on me though after a while you could see how he was doing it. Chris Rock? Yes, I’ve only seen that Comedy Central show but it was terrific. Though further than that I think he’s hampered by wanting to be a comic who criticises life in the US from an outsider perspective and at the same time wishing to be a Hollywood insider. It’s not possible, you can be one or the other.
More modern British comics? I dunno, I’m still interested and they’re all very slick and so on but you do feel for all of them its more of a career rather than an artistic endeavour. That’s not their fault, purely by an accident of timing I was central to a whole new way of doing comedy, but you can only invent rock and roll once. Now there is so much press attention, internet chatter, so much money to be made, so many acts that are similar to what you do, it must be hard to think of a way to be original. If I was young now I think I’d be trying to find a whole new way of being an airline pilot or a punk heart surgeon.
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Reader Comments (13)
Well thank god you're not young now, then!
This column deserves a few more votes on that site...let's see what we can do :-)
You've reminded me: I read about Keith Allen's performances in Roger Wilmut's book. Possibly based on your own anecdotes as he mentioned the darts and the fire extinguisher. Wilmut also cited his naked invasion of a Max Bygraves show. I used to wish I'd seen him (Keith Allen) perform for ages after.
Not because of the nudity thing.
I think there's a lot of good in 'edgy' performances. Even the more cartoon edginess of The Dangerous Brothers was enough to get me excited.
The last stand up I saw and thought was genuinely not about securing a career was Will Hodgeson. And he was big-boned and had a skinhead.
Strangers unite: Vote Alexei.
No mention of Mike and Bernie Winters, then?
The British comics i liked were the Beano and the Dandy.
I suppose the human and the paper comics are related? The Kor comic first issue had a fart bladder. Others had itching power or similar tricks. Did anyone ever buy those pet seahorses?
Maybe a test of a good human comic is to think what their material would be like in a paper comic? If one was to put the Alexi books into comic or graphic novel form then they would probably they need to be x rated and on the top shelf? Perhaps near to Engineering Now Magazine as you need a certain level of eduction to understand some of it? Something like a Viz?
If one can picture what a human comic's paper comic is like then they have probably got something?
There are some excellent comic performances in the Iraq Inquiry. A MAD style comic might be made of the whole thing? From the shinning eyed believers of the neocon castle that is the foreign office and their 'last man last round no retreat no surrender' crusader schtick to paranoid Tony's creepy 'war on iran' tub thumping. Its all there.
Comedy was 'invented' as a form by the ancient Greeks although what today is called comedy often doesn't go by those rules. Rather than baring their bottom at the King comics abuse those without power or status ie ordinary people. which isn't funny but the misuse of cruelty that should be used for the pompous and the vainglorious.
the way to be sure of getting an award is to set up a tv public phone vote? mind you there comes a time people start to get them because people think the famous person is about to die? there are other awards that people get because people suddenly realise that famous person, who they had forgotten about, is still alive? The coffin dodgers gong.
Personally i can see you in the House of Lords. After all it is a comedy club.
oops i spelt your name wrong. it should read Alexei. Apologies. I shall now put on an orange jump suit and chain myself into a stress position for three days while listening to heavy grunge full blast on head phones till blood comes out my ears. why should only muslims have all the fun?
i think the americans are missing out on a business opportunity as some people would pay for that kind of treatment? The Gitmo Experience theme park. Take the kids.
Ahhhhh....I think voting is now closed. I used the link again and page cannot be found :( hope we done enough! Keith Allen....a legend. Never took to Jerry Sadowitz though. It's odd, I know what i don't like more than what I do. I just don't get Sarah Silverman or Flight of The Conchords, or even the Mighty Boosh, but Lee Mack makes me cry laughing!
Anyhoo folks. got a new group set up on the fabled Facebook, asking for the release of ANASS 1&2 and Merry Go Round. Give it an add if you can :)
xx
I just wanna laugh at a Comic's act.
Alexei, I saw on YouTube your contribution for Gaza One Year On. It's great that you won't let yourself be silenced. And, at least as important: great shirt! Where do you shop?
Tee Hee, he's a hoodie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCZ0HcuhIdA
xx
Alexei, you may not win the poll but someone did write a (pretty crappy) song about you: http://fawm.org/songs/1514/...it's so bad you have to call it ironic
60 quid and a bag of coke... classic.
Agreed. Geezer!
xx
Hi everyone, thought I'd post as it's all gone a tad quiet....was reading your list of appearances and think you omitted Curacao, a film I got off Ebay for 2 quid. Good accent, bad movie. I was able to link you to my heroes Peter Sellers and Sammo Hung in one move due to that film! :)
Blighty (UK digital channel for our overseas friends) have been re-running Liverpool, but chopping big chunks out for advertising space. Shame really, I loved the expressions you gave the bloke running the Beatles themed hotel!
Sent out a link to the Sayle collective about the Huddersfield Lit. Fest (?) on March 11. And I managed to get a voluntary job in a bookshop working for Amnesty International. Irrelevant, I know....
xx