By Elliott West
“I don’t go out of my way to be outrageous, I just go out of my way to look at things”.
Dave Allen
Introduction
With a lit cigarette in his hand and a glass of whisky by his side, the suited Dave Allen used his television chair as his procrastinating pulpit. The Irish comedian never failed to have a bee in his bonnet about something. Raging about the Catholic Church, politics or anything authoritarian, Allen could be irked by something as simple as a blown Christmas tree bulb or an old lady taking too long to count out her change in a supermarket queue. Dave was a firebrand comedian who was a master of calm ferocity with a television show that ran on the BBC for 20 years, a mixture of one-man pieces to camera and sketches. Allen was like a boiling kettle, the old type with a whistle. Jokes that would ring true and we as the television audience could identify with them.
Even as a child, I loved to watch this cutting-edge humour. It made me convulse with laughter. An indulgence that brightened up your evening and made your gripes in life slightly more bearable. Although Allen’s work was scripted, he made it seem effortless. As if it was a man down the pub putting the world to rights. A mixture of make-believe and real-life experiences fleshed out by a ruffled Irishman who sent electric charges through his body language. A comedian who was a one-off and someone who set the benchmark in comedy. Cross-legged, brushing his suit every so often with an easy swipe. Allen had his audience in the palm of his hand and made them roar with laughter. A comedian who was a natural storyteller.
The Cutting Edge
Born David Tynan O’Mahony in 1936 in Firhouse, Ireland, Allen was the son of an Irish father and an English mother. His father Nora was the managing editor of The Irish Times and his mother Jean was a housewife. Spending his first years in Keenagh, County Longford and Dublin, Dave’s father died when he was 12 and at the age of 14 the family moved to England. Born into an agnostic household, Allen was still put through the motions of a Catholic upbringing. Taught by stern and no-nonsense nuns and priests at Newbridge College, Terenure College and the Catholic University School, this sowed the seeds for Allen’s disdain of religion. A pure faith that was riddled with hypocrisy. Yet before he found his purpose in life, the Irishman had to learn a trade. Worked as a copy boy at the Drogheda Argus in Fleet Street, a Butlins red coat in Skegness, a stand-up in strip clubs and night clubs, a sales assistant in a toy shop in Sheffield and as a door-to-door salesman of draught excluders.
Persuaded by his agent to change his name to Allen as his surname was clumsy and unpronounceable, he believed his stage name would go to the top of the agents’ list as it began with the first letter of the alphabet. A comedian lost the top of his left index finger after it was caught on a machine cog. An accident that he would embellish throughout his life, claiming his brother John had bitten it off or it had been eaten away by strong drink.
The Lucky Break
Dave Allen had his first television appearance on New Faces in 1959 and would go on to tour with Adam Faith, Helen Shapiro, and Helen Tucker across South Africa. Through Tucker, he went on to get a spot on an Australian television show working with Digby Wolfe as his resident comedian. He would go on to return to the UK and appear on The Blackpool Show, Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium and The Val Doonican Show. He work also appear on Tonight with Dave Allen on ATV.
The Trademark
“The hierarchy of everything in my life has always bothered me. I’m bothered by power. People, whoever they might be, whether it’s the government, or the policeman in the uniform, or the man on the door – they still irk me a bit. From school, from the first nun that belted me.”
Dave Allen
In 1968 Allen signed a contract with the BBC, working on The Dave Allen Show and later Dave Allen at Large from 1971 to 1979. He would return to the BBC in 1990 and then did his final series on ITV in 1993. A comedian who would go on to live in semi-retirement at his house in Holland Park. He would go on to throw his trademark cigarettes in the bin, sick of their smell. A comedian who grew old disgracefully. All with meticulous timing. Allen died peacefully in his sleep in 2005. An Irish comedian who voiced a person’s inner thoughts and attempted to make sense of them.
