Dave Allen (comedian)

Dave Allen
Dave Allen 1968.JPG
Allen as the host of the CBS programme Showtime in 1968.
Born
David Tynan O'Mahony

(1936-07-06)6 July 1936
Died10 March 2005(2005-03-10) (aged 68)
NationalityIrish
Occupation
  • Comedian
  • actor
  • interviewer
Years active1959–1998
TelevisionThe Dave Allen Show, Dave Allen at Large
Spouse(s)
Judith Stott
(m. 1964⁠–⁠1983)
divorced
Karin Stark
(m. 2003⁠–⁠2005)
; his death
ChildrenJane Tynan O'Mahony (born 1965)
Edward James Tynan O'Mahony (born 1968)
Cullen Eden Tynan O'Mahony (born 2005) [1]

David Tynan O'Mahony (6 July 1936 – 10 March 2005), known professionally as Dave Allen, was an Irish observational comedian[2] and satirist.[3]

Initially becoming known in Australia during 1963–64, Allen made regular television appearances in the United Kingdom from the later 1960s and until the mid-1980s. The BBC aired his Dave Allen Show 1971–1986,[4] which was also exported to several other European countries.[5] He had a major resurgence during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the height of his career he was Ireland's most controversial comedian, regularly provoking indignation by highlighting political hypocrisy and showing disdain for religious authority. His television shows were broadcast in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Yugoslavia, Australia and New Zealand.

Early life

David Tynan O'Mahony was born in Firhouse, Dublin, Ireland, the youngest of three sons.[6] His father was Gerard "Cully" Tynan O'Mahony, managing editor of The Irish Times, and nephew of Irish writer Katharine Tynan,[7] and his mother was an Englishwoman named Jean Archer.[8] He, his brothers and mother spent around 18 months living in the village of Keenagh, County Longford, after leaving Dublin in the wake of the North Strand bombings in 1941: following this, they moved back to Dublin, living at Cherryfield, a house located between Firhouse and Templeogue Bridge.[9][10] His father died when he was aged 12 and his mother subsequently moved the family to England when he was aged 14. He was educated at Newbridge College, Terenure College and the Catholic University School.

Career

He initially followed his father into journalism, firstly joining the Drogheda Argus as a copy boy, but at the age of 19 went to Fleet Street, London. He drifted through a series of jobs before becoming a Butlins Redcoat at Skegness in a troupe that also included British jazz trumpeter and writer John Chilton. At the end of each summer season he did stand-up at strip clubs and for the next four years appeared in various night clubs, theatres and working men's clubs. When entertainment work was slow he sold toys in a Sheffield store and also worked as a door-to-door draught-excluder salesman. He changed his stage surname to "Allen" on the prompting of his agent, who believed that few people in Britain could pronounce "O'Mahony" correctly. Allen himself hoped that a surname beginning with "A" would put him at the top of any agent's list.

Allen lost the top of his left forefinger above the middle knuckle after catching it in a machine cog.[10] However, 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 all ready to play Cowboys 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 Allen 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.[11]

Allen's first television appearance was on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959.[12] He hosted pop music shows in the early 1960s, including tours by Adam Faith and Helen Shapiro,[13] and in early 1963 was the compere of a tour of Britain, headlined by Shapiro, that also included The Beatles. In 1962 he toured South Africa with American vaudeville star Sophie 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 that he try his luck in Australia. Moving there, he worked with Digby Wolfe on Australian television, becoming Wolfe's resident comedian.

While on tour in Australia in 1963, he quickly proved successful and accepted an offer to headline a television talk show with Channel 9, Tonight with Dave Allen, which was also successful. However, 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 with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The ban was dropped quietly as Allen's popularity continued unabated.

Allen returned to the United Kingdom in 1964 and made a number of appearances on ITV, including The Blackpool Show and Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and on the BBC on The Val Doonican Show. In 1967 he hosted his own comedy/chat series, Tonight with Dave Allen, made by ATV, which earned him the Variety Club's ITV Personality of the Year Award.

He signed with the BBC in 1968 and appeared on The Dave Allen Show, a variety/comedy sketch series. This was followed from 1971–79 by Dave Allen at Large. The theme tune for The Dave Allen Show and Dave Allen at Large, written by Alan Hawkshaw, was titled "Blarney's Stoned" (originally recorded for KPM in 1969 under the title "Studio 69").[14]

The shows introduced his solo joke-telling-while-sitting-on-a-stool-and-drinking routine. This stand-up routine by Allen led to sketches that continued the themes touched on in the preceding monologues. Meanwhile, he sought theatre roles. In 1972 he acted as a doctor in the Royal Court's production of Edna O'Brien's play A Pagan Place. With family friend Maggie Smith[6] in the lead, he appeared in Peter Pan in a run during 1973[15] and 1974. Allen played the roles of Mr Darling and Captain Hook in the production at the London Coliseum.[16] Allen made The 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 with Dave Allen in the Melting Pot (1969), looking at life in New York City and dealing with issues such as racism and drugs. Later programmes included Dave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric (1974) and Eccentrics at Play (1974), in which he looked at colourful characters with idiosyncratic passions.[17]

Allen's satirizing of religious ritual, especially Catholic ones, throughout each episode of Dave Allen at Large caused minor controversy, which – coupled with sometimes comparatively frank material – earned the show a risqué reputation. In 1977 the Irish state broadcaster RTÉ placed a de facto ban on Allen. Routines included sketches showing the pope (played by Allen) and his cardinals doing a striptease to music ("The Stripper") on the steps of St Peter's, aggressive priests beating their parishioners and each other, priests who spoke like Daleks through electronic confessionals, and an extremely excitable pope who spoke in a Chico Marx style accent as he ordered Allen to "getta your bum outta Roma!"[18] In 1979 he played a troubled property man suffering a mid-life crisis in Alan Bennett's television play One Fine Day.[19] New seasons of the comedy series, now titled Dave Allen, were broadcast from 1981 until 1990.

Later career

His final series for the BBC in 1990 caused controversy with this joke:[20][21]

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![22][better source needed]

This prompted MP Robert Hayward to ask a parliamentary question about "offensive language" in broadcasting.[20] In 1993 Allen returned to ITV, where he starred in the Dave Allen Show, which was his final regular television series.

By the late 1990s Allen was living quietly in semi-retirement at his family home in Holland Park, west London. A keen amateur artist, he continued to exhibit his paintings.[23] 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 90s saw him make occasional chat show appearances and discuss his career in the six-part The Unique Dave Allen (BBC, 1998), in between clips from his past BBC series.

As he grew older, he brought a rueful awareness of aging 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 the British Comedy Awards in 1996.[24]

Material

Act

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. 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. 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.

Religion

He was a religious sceptic[23] (according to Allen, "what you might call a practising atheist", and often joked, "I'm an atheist, thank God") 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 the Church 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 raised his glass and quietly toasted his audience with the words "Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you."[25]

Influence on others

Highly regarded in Britain, Allen's comic technique and style had a lasting influence on many young British comedians.[26] His targets were often figures of authority, his style was observational rather than gag-driven, and his language frequently ripe; as such he was a progenitor for the "alternative" comedians of the 1980s. Stewart Lee has cited Allen as an influence.[27]

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 the Ulster Protestant leader Ian Paisley made him unpopular amongst many Protestants in Northern Ireland.

In a 2017 interview with Howard Stern, Adam Sandler attributed Allen as one of his first comedic influences when he saw his act at the Nevele hotel at the age of 10.[28]

Personal life

Introduced by mutual acquaintance Maggie Smith, Allen married English actress Judith Stott in 1964. The couple had two children, a son, Edward James Tynan O'Mahony (professionally Ed Allen), who is also a comedian, and a daughter, Jane. He also had a stepson in Judith's son Jonathan.[29] The marriage ended in divorce in 1983.

Allen's hobbies included painting, which he became increasingly enthusiastic about in his later years. His first exhibition, Private Views, was held in Edinburgh in 2001.[30][dead link]

Allen died peacefully in his sleep as a result of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome at his home in Kensington, London, on 10 March 2005 at the age of 68. He was survived by Karin Tynan O'Mahony (née Stark), his wife of 18 months who had been his partner since 1986,[6] and his three children from his first marriage. Three weeks after Allen's death Karin gave birth to their son, Cullen.

A dramatisation of Allen's life and career, entitled Dave Allen At Peace, was shown on RTÉ One and BBC Two in 2018, with Aidan Gillen portraying the comedian.[31]

Bibliography

  • Graham McCann (ed.) The Essential Dave Allen London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005. ISBN 0-340-89945-X.
  • Carolyn Soutar Dave Allen: The Biography London: Orion, 2005. ISBN 0752873814.

References

  1. ^ "The Son Dave Allen Never Got To See." Mirror. 25 September 2005.
  2. ^ Double, Oliver (1997). "Dave Allen". Stand-Up! on being a comedian. London: Methuen Publishing. p. 140. ISBN 978-0413703200. This was quite an innovation, because up to this point there had been no tradition of observational comedy in British stand-up.
  3. ^ Gaither, Carl C. & Alma E. (2012). Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (Second ed.). New York: Springer. p. 906. ISBN 978-1-4614-1114-7.
  4. ^ BBC's released DVD (this copy for Sweden and Finland), back side of its cover states (translated from Swedish "The best sketches 1971–1986 with Dave Allen" (a combination of him sitting in his famous chair, drinking, smoking and telling jokes – and his sketches)
  5. ^ The mentioned DVD clearly supports at least Sweden and Finland
  6. ^ a b c Robin Brown (Director) (19 April 2013). Dave Allen: God's Own Comedian (Television documentary). London: BBC Two. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  7. ^ Dixon, Stephen (12 March 2005). "Dave Allen: Irreverent comedian whose reflective monologues provoked outrage and delight". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  8. ^ "Ancestry.com". Search.ancestry.com. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  9. ^ "Comedian with a rare style of voicing outrage at society's ills". irishtimes.com. 12 March 2005. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  10. ^ a b Caden, Sarah (20 February 2005). "Fingered at last: the truth behind the comedian's missing digit". Irish Independent. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  11. ^ Story related in "Dave Allen at Peace", Telemovie, partially fictionalised), BBC, 2018
  12. ^ "Great Irish Comedians", BBC Comedy Archived 21 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ Bradford Timeline (2011). "Helen Shapiro tour programme, 1961". Flickr. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  14. ^ "'Off the telly' website". Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  15. ^ "Dave Allen". The Daily Telegraph. London. 12 March 2005. ISSN 0307-1235. OCLC 49632006. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  16. ^ Hanson, Bruce K. (2011). Peter Pan on Stage and Screen: 1904–2010. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 354.
  17. ^ Hayward, Anthony (12 March 2005). "Dave Allen (obituary)". The Independent. London. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  18. ^ McCann, Graham, ed. (2005). The Essential Dave Allen. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
  19. ^ "One Fine Day (TV Movie 1979)". IMDb. 2014. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  20. ^ a b Plunkett, John (11 March 2005). "Dave Allen dies aged 68". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  21. ^ "Offensive Language". Hansard HC Deb. 16 January 1990. pp. vol 165 c173W. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  22. ^ "Video of Show". offensive language. 11 January 1990. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
  23. ^ a b "Dave Allen obituary". Daily Telegraph. London. 11 March 2005. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
  24. ^ "The British Comedy Awards - Winners 1996". www.britishcomedyawards.com. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  25. ^ Chilton, Martin (28 December 2014). "Dave Allen – God's Own Comedian, BBC2, review". Telegraph.
  26. ^ Otchet, Amy (May 1999). "Mark Thomas: method and madness of a TV comic". UNESCO Courier. Archived from the original on 26 January 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  27. ^ Lee, Stewart (2011) [2010]. How I escaped my certain fate : the life and deaths of a stand-up comedian (Pbk. ed.). London: Faber. ISBN 9780571254811. OCLC 765526121.
  28. ^ Howard Stern Show April 12 2017. Howard Stern. 13 April 2017 – via YouTube.
  29. ^ "Dave Allen leaves £3m in his will... but nothing to his adopted". Evening Standard. 13 January 2007. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  30. ^ "Final Bow for Comic who put the Alternative into Comedy". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. 12 March 2005. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
  31. ^ "BBC programme information". BBC Media Centre. Retrieved 25 March 2018.

External links

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