Dave Allen | |
|---|---|
 Allen in 1968 | |
| Born | David Tynan O'Mahony (1936-07-06)6 July 1936 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 10 March 2005(2005-03-10) (aged 68) Kensington, London, England |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1959–1998 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
David Tynan O'Mahony (6 July 1936 – 10 March 2005), known professionally asDave Allen, was an Irish comedian,[1] satirist,[2] and actor. He was best known for hisobservational comedy. Allen regularly provoked indignation by highlighting political hypocrisy and showing disdain for religious authority. His technique and style have influenced young British comedians.[3]
Initially becoming known in Australia in 1963 and 1964, Allen made regular television appearances in the United Kingdom from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s. TheBBC aired hisDave Allen Show from 1971 to 1986,[4] which was also exported to several other European countries.[5] He had a major resurgence during the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s before retiring in 1998. His television shows were also broadcast in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Yugoslavia, Australia, and New Zealand.
David Tynan O'Mahony was born in theFirhouse suburb ofDublin on 6 July 1936, the son of an Irish father and English mother.[6] His father, Cullen "Pussy" O'Mahony, was the managing editor ofThe Irish Times, the son of writerNora Tynan O'Mahony, and a nephew of writerKatharine Tynan.[7] His mother, Jean Archer, was a housewife.[8] During theIrish War of Independence, his father fought with British Forces as part of the controversialAuxiliary Division; at the end of that conflict, he enlisted in Britain'sPalestine Police Force to undertake operations inMandatory Palestine.[9] Allen, his brothers, and their mother spent around 18 months living inKeenagh, County Longford after leaving Dublin in the wake of the1941 North Strand bombings. Following this, they moved back to Dublin and lived at Cherryfield, a house between Firhouse andTempleogue Bridge.[10][11] Allen was educated atNewbridge College,Terenure College, and theCatholic University School. His father died when Allen was 12 years old, and his mother subsequently moved the family to England when he was 14.
Allen initially followed his father intojournalism, firstly joining theDrogheda Argus as acopy boy, but at the age of 19 went toFleet Street, London. He drifted through a series of jobs before becoming aButlins Redcoat atSkegness in a troupe that also included British jazz trumpeter and writerJohn Chilton. At the end of each summer season he did stand-up atstrip clubs; for the next four years, he appeared in various night clubs, theatres, and working men's clubs. When entertainment work was slow, he worked at a toy shop inSheffield and as a door-to-door salesman ofdraught excluders. He changed hisstage surname to "Allen" at the behest of his agent, who believed that few people in the UK could pronounce "O'Mahony" correctly. Allen agreed to the change because he hoped that a surname beginning with "A" would put him at the top of agents' lists.
Allen lost the top of his leftindex finger above the middle knuckle after catching it in a machine cog.[11] He enjoyed inventing stories to explain the loss, which became a minor part of his act. One version was that his brother John had surprised him by snapping his jaw shut when they were children. A further explanation he gave on his programme,Dave Allen at Large, was that he often stuck his finger in his whiskey glass and it had been eaten away by strong drink. He also said it was worn away from repeatedly brushing the dust from his suit. One of his stand-up jokes was that, as a boy, he and his friends would go to see a cowboy movie at the local cinema, then come out ready to playCowboys and Indians. Staring down at his truncated finger, he would mutter, "I had a sawn-off shotgun". On his show he told a long, elaborate ghost story, ending with "something evil" attacking him in a dark and haunted house. Allen grabbed and bit the attacker, the studio lights came back up, and it was his own left hand.[12]
Allen's first television appearance was on the BBC talent showNew Faces in 1959.[13] He hosted pop music shows in the early 1960s, including tours byAdam Faith andHelen Shapiro and in early 1963 was thecompere of atour of Britain, headlined by Shapiro that also includedThe Beatles.[14] In 1962 he touredSouth Africa with American vaudeville starSophie Tucker, whom he described as "one of the most charming and delightful performers with whom I have ever worked". Tucker was impressed with him and suggested he try his luck in Australia. Moving there, he worked withDigby Wolfe on Australian television, becoming Wolfe's resident comedian.
While on tour in Australia in 1963, he accepted an offer to headline a television talk show forChannel 9,Tonight with Dave Allen, which debuted on Thursday 4 July that year[15] and was successful. Only six months after his television début he was banned from the Australian airwaves when, during a live broadcast, he told his show's producer—who had been pressing him to go to a commercial break—to "go away and masturbate", so that he could continue an entertaining interview withPeter Cook andDudley Moore. The ban was quietly dropped as Allen's popularity continued unabated. In July 1964 it was announced that Allen would present a 'series of five-minute radio shows' for Sydney station 2UW under the titleThis Man's World.[16] Allen returned to the United Kingdom in 1964 and made a number of appearances onITV, includingThe Blackpool Show andVal Parnell'sSunday Night at the London Palladium and on the BBC onThe Val Doonican Show. In 1967, he hosted his own comedy/chat series,Tonight with Dave Allen, made byATV, for which he received theVariety Club's ITV Personality of the Year Award.
He signed with the BBC in 1968 and appeared onThe Dave Allen Show, a variety/comedy sketch series. This was followed from 1971 to 1979 byDave Allen at Large. The theme tune forThe Dave Allen Show andDave Allen at Large, written byAlan Hawkshaw, was titled "Blarney's Stoned" (originally recorded forKPM in 1969 under the title "Studio 69").[17]
The shows introduced his solo joke-telling-while-sitting-on-a-stool-or-chair-and-drinking routine. This stand-up routine by Allen led to sketches continuing the themes touched on in the preceding monologues. Dave Allen also sought theatre roles and in 1972, he acted as a doctor in theRoyal Court's production ofEdna O'Brien's playA Pagan Place. With family friendMaggie Smith in the lead, he appeared inPeter Pan in a run during 1973 and 1974.[6][18] Allen played the roles ofMr Darling andCaptain Hook in the production at theLondon Coliseum.[19] Allen madeThe Dave Allen Show in Australia (1975–1977) for his old employers, Channel 9.
Allen was also a social commentator, appearing in several television documentaries for ITV, beginning withDave Allen in the Melting Pot (1969), looking at life in New York City and dealing with issues such as racism and drugs. Later programmes includedDave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric (1974) andEccentrics at Play (1974), in which he looked atcolourful characters with idiosyncratic passions.[20]
Allen's satirising of religious ritual, especially Catholic ones, throughout each episode ofDave Allen at Large caused minor controversy, which – coupled with sometimes comparatively frank material – earned the show a risqué reputation. In 1977, the Irish state broadcasterRTÉ placed ade facto ban on Allen but he made appearances onThe Late Late Show being interviewed byGay Byrne.[21][22] Routines included sketches showing the pope (played by Allen) and his cardinals doing a striptease to music ("The Stripper") on the steps ofSt Peter's, aggressive priests beating their parishioners and each other, priests who spoke likeDaleks through electronic confessionals and an extremely excitable pope who spoke in aChico Marx style accent as he ordered Allen to "getta your bum outta Roma!"[23] In 1979, he played a troubled property man suffering a mid-life crisis inAlan Bennett's television playOne Fine Day.[24] New series of the comedy show, now titledDave Allen, were broadcast from 1981 until 1990.
Allen's final series for the BBC in 1990 caused controversy with this joke:[25][26]
You wake to the clock, you go to work to the clock, you clock-in to the clock, you clock out to the clock, you come home to the clock, you eat to the clock, you drink to the clock, you go to bed to the clock, you get up to the clock, you go back to work to the clock... You do that for forty years of your life and you retire — what do they fucking give you? A clock![27][better source needed]
This prompted MPRobert Hayward to ask aparliamentary question about "offensive language" in broadcasting.[25] In 1993, Allen returned to ITV, where he starred in theDave Allen Show, which was his final regular television series.
By the late 1990s, Allen was living quietly in semi-retirement at his family home inHolland Park, west London. He had given up cigarettes in the 1980s, having smoked regularly during earlier television appearances. A comedy skit in 1994 talked not only about quitting smoking but hating the smell of smoke. The 1990s saw him make occasional chat show appearances and discuss his career in the six-partThe Unique Dave Allen (BBC, 1998), in between clips from his past BBC series. As he grew older, Allen brought a rueful awareness of ageing to his material, with reflections on the antics of teenagers and the sagging skin and sprouting facial hair of age. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award at theBritish Comedy Awards in 1996.[28]
Allen's act was typified by a relaxed, rueful, and intimate style. He sat on a high bar stool facing his audience, smoking and occasionally sipping from a glass of what he always allowed people to assume was whiskey but in fact was merely ginger ale with ice.[citation needed] He was a sober-minded man, and although he sometimes appeared crotchety and irritable on stage he always gave off an air of charm and serene melancholy, both in his act and in real life.[citation needed] Each day he pored over newspapers, scribbling notes and ideas for his routines. Along with his seated stand-up routines, his television shows were interspersed with filmed sketch comedy.[citation needed]
Allen was a religious sceptic.[18] He once said he was "what you might call a practisingatheist" and often joked, "I'm an atheist, thank God." His scepticism came as a result of his deeply held objections to the rigidity of his strict Catholic schooling. Consequently, religion became an important subject for his humour, especially the Catholic Church and theChurch of England, generally mocking church customs and rituals rather than beliefs. In 1998, he explained:
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—people used to think of the nice sweet little ladies—they used to knock the fuck out of you, in the most cruel way that they could. They'd find bits of your body that were vulnerable to intense pain—grabbing you by the ear, or by the nose, and lift you, and say 'Don't cry!' It's very hard not to cry. I mean, not from emotion, but pain. The priests were the same. And I sit and watch politicians with great cynicism, total cynicism.
At the end of his act, Allen always signed off with the words "Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you."[29]
Allen married English actress Judith Stott in 1964.[30] The couple had a daughter, Jane (born 1965), and a son, Edward James Tynan O'Mahony (born 1968), who later became a comedian under the name Ed Allen. Allen was also the stepfather of Stott's son Jonathan.[31] The marriage ended in divorce in 1983.[32]
Allen began dating Karin Stark in 1986, and married her in 2003.[6] The couple had a son, Cullen, who was born three weeks after Allen's death.[33]
Allen's hobbies included painting, about which he became increasingly enthusiastic in his later years. His first exhibition,Private Views, was held inEdinburgh in 2001.[34]
On 10 March 2005, at the age of 68, Allen died peacefully in his sleep as a result ofsudden arrhythmic death syndrome at his home inKensington, London.[35]
Highly regarded in Britain, Allen's comic technique and style had a lasting influence on many young British comedians includingJimmy Carr.[3] His targets were often figures of authority, his style was observational rather than gag-driven, and his language was frequently ripe; as such, he was a progenitor for the "alternative" comedians of the 1980s.Stewart Lee has cited Allen as an influence.[36]
In his native Ireland, he always remained somewhat controversial. His mocking of the Catholic Church made him unpopular amongst some Irish Catholics, while his mocking of theUlster Protestant leaderIan Paisley made him unpopular amongst manyProtestants inNorthern Ireland.[citation needed]
In a 2017 interview withHoward Stern,Adam Sandler cited Allen as one of his first comedic influences when he saw his act at theNevele Hotel at the age of 10.[37]
A dramatisation of Allen's life and career, entitledDave Allen At Peace, was shown onRTÉ One andBBC Two in 2018, withAidan Gillen portraying Allen.[38]
This was quite an innovation, because up to this point there had been no tradition of observational comedy in British stand-up.
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