Alexei Sayle
Alexei David Sayle is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups in 2007. In an updated 2010 poll he came 72nd.
Much of Sayle's humour is in the tradition of Spike Milligan and Monty Python, with riffs based on often absurd and surreal premises. His act is known for its cynicism and political awareness as well as physical comedy.
Early life
Sayle is Jewish. He was born and brought up in the Anfield suburb of Liverpool, the son of Molly Sayle, a pools clerk, and Joseph Henry Sayle, a railway guard, both of whom were members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Sayle's mother was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and some members of his family were devout Jews. Sayle was named after Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Alexei Maximovich Peshkov.From 1964 to 1969, he attended Alsop High School in Walton, and he was expelled halfway through sixth form. After that, Sayle took a foundation course in art in Southport before attending Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. He attended Garnett College in Roehampton, a training college for teachers in further education.
Career
Stand-up comedy and theatre
When The Comedy Store opened in London in 1979, Sayle responded to an advert in Private Eye for would-be comedians and became its first master of ceremonies. In 1980, comedy producer Martin Lewis saw Sayle perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and became his manager.Sayle became the leading performer at The Comic Strip. He appeared on The Comic Strip Album and recorded Cak!. He also appeared in the stage show, film and comedy album of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. An example of Sayle's humour was his attack on American phrases: "If you travel to the States... they have a lot of different words than like what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator', we say 'lift'; they say 'drapes', we say 'curtains'; they say 'president', we say 'seriously deranged git!'"
In 1988 Sayle played the role of Trinculo the King's jester in Shakespeare's The Tempest, directed by Jonathan Miller at the Old Vic theatre in London.
Sixteen years on from his last stand-up comedy tour, Sayle returned in 2011 as an MC, compering the middle section of At Last! The 1981 Show, produced by Stewart Lee at the Royal Festival Hall. Although this was mainly a nostalgia night with comedians such as Nigel Planer and Norman Lovett revisiting their material from the 1980s, Sayle premiered some new material that was more anecdotal than his previous work. Sayle said of his old style, "What I was doing, which I hadn't realised, was a comic persona. The guy in the tight suit was actually a creation. I thought it was me in a sense but it wasn't".
With artists such as Isy Suttie and Jim Bob, Sayle appeared at the fourth "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People" event at the Bloomsbury Theatre in December 2011. In January and February 2012, he compered four nights of stand-up comedy at the Soho Theatre. He completed a full UK stand-up tour in October and November 2012 and a sixteen-night residency at the Soho Theatre in January and February 2013, where he performed new material. He played a further ten nights at the Soho Theatre in April 2013. He also performed at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Radio
Sayle's early work included several performances for Capital London. In 1981, he wrote and performed the radio series, Alexei Sayle and the Fish People, for which he won a Pye Radio Award. An album based on the show, The Fish People Tapes, again featuring Sayle, was released in 1984. This was followed by Alexei Sayle and the Dutch Lieutenant's Trousers, the name being a reference to John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. He also starred in two series of Lenin of the Rovers, a 1988 comedy about Britain's first communist football team. He has since contributed to many other radio shows, including writing the five-part sitcom series, Sorry About Last Night, in which he also played the leading role. On 3 November 2006 he presented Chopwell Soviet, a 30-minute programme on BBC Radio 4 that reviewed the Chopwell miners 80 years after the village of Chopwell became known as Little Moscow. Sayle returned to Radio 4 in 2016 with Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar, which has run for five critically acclaimed series so far. In 2019, he narrated the dramatisation of four of his short stories in the series Alexei Sayle's The Absence of Normal, again on Radio 4. A second series was broadcast in 2021.Since February 2022 Sayle has presented BBC Radio 4's Alexei Sayle's Strangers on a Train.
Television
Sayle's first high-profile television appearances were on Central Independent Television's late-night alternative cabaret show O.T.T.. He left nine weeks into the show's run to tour Australia with the Comic Strip. He played various roles in the situation comedy The Young Ones, along with Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan. In the programme Sayle portrayed several members of an Eastern European family; the Balowskis. In 1985, he appeared in the Doctor Who serial Revelation of the Daleks. In a column for a British tabloid newspaper around the same time, he indicated that he wanted to become the "first Socialist Doctor." He also appeared in several episodes of The Comic Strip Presents... between 1985 and 1993, playing the two leading roles in Didn't You Kill My Brother? which he co-wrote with David Stafford and Pauline Melville. Sayle has co-written and starred in many other programmes, including three series of Alexei Sayle's Stuff, two series of The All New Alexei Sayle Show and one series of Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round.In 1989, Sayle was awarded an International Emmy for Stuff. In conversation with Mark Thomas on BBC Radio 4's informal chat-show Chain Reaction, Sayle revealed that the first he knew of the award was when he watched Channel 4 News and saw, to his amazement, Benny Hill collecting the award on his behalf. In 1990, Sayle had a fatwa proclaimed against him by a Muslim cleric from Syria after a joke on his BBC comedy show Stuff, which has never been withdrawn.
Sayle was signed in 1992 to a seven-year contract to play an Eastern European chef as a regular character on the American sitcom The Golden Palace, the sequel to The Golden Girls, but was fired and replaced by Cheech Marin before the pilot was filmed. The series was cancelled after one season.
In 1994, he presented the miniseries Drive, which gave advice for safe driving through Sayle's signature form of humour interspersed with serious pieces. In 2008, he wrote and presented Alexei Sayle's Liverpool, a three-part television series in which he reconnected with his home town. He stated in the programmes that on first hearing that Liverpool was to be awarded the European Capital of Culture, he received much criticism for describing the city as "philistine". He now feels that he does not know whether or not his original statement was true but as a result of making the series he does now consider Liverpool to be his home, and he has vowed to go back there more often in the future.
Sayle also narrated the Public information film Moon Lighters about two moon creatures, Biblock and Hoblock and the dangers of lighters. Sayle replaced Rolf Harris as the narrator for the Nick Jr. and Milkshake! series Olive The Ostrich. Episodes featuring Sayle's narration commenced broadcasting on 22 July 2013.