The comedian charts his life in demos from 1960s Liverpool to 2020s London in this fiery and addictive book
At 74, the comedian Alexei Sayle is approaching a dangerous phase for veteran British leftists: becoming a national treasure. Once described by special branch, in a surveillance file gleefully quoted in this memoir, as an “intellectual thug” who made “foul-mouthed comments about the royal family”, Sayle now appears regularly on Radio 4. His jolly, self-deprecating, man of the people side – one of his radio series is called Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar – has made him almost cosy.
But not quite. One fascination of his meandering career, which has included villainous Hollywood cameos, subversive podcasts and successful novelty pop songs, is the persistent fierceness of his politics – the underlying subject of this short, sharp book. “My decision to become … a professional funny man,” he writes, “wasn’t a choice made simply out of monstrous vanity … I was also … taking part in [Antonio] Gramsci’s war of position: attempting to get examples of communist thought on to Top of the Pops, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Doctor Who.”
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