Alexei Sayle

Alexei David Sayle (born 7 August 1952) is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist.

From 1964 to 1969, he attended Alsop High School in Walton, and was expelled halfway through sixth form.

After that, Sayle took a foundation course in art at 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.

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 1979, he wrote and performed the radio series, Alexei Sayle and the Fish People, for which he won a Pye Radio Award (later known as the Sony Radio Awards).

An album based on the show, The Fish People Tapes, again featuring Sayle, was released.

He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s.

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.

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 says 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".

This was followed by Alexei Sayle and the Dutch Lieutenant's Trousers in 1980, the name being a reference to John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman.

He appeared on The Comic Strip Album (1981) and recorded Cak! (1982).

He also appeared in the stage show, film and comedy album of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1981–1982).

Sayle's material covered a broad range of topics, but one of his favourite subjects remained politics.

His angry persona, coupled with his vociferous delivery, gave immense bite to his material.

A typical 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!'"

The 1981 Show'', produced by Stewart Lee at the Royal Festival Hall.

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.

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 (1999), 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.

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.

Sayle was born and brought up in the Anfield suburb of Liverpool, the son of Molly (Malka) Sayle (née Mendelson), 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.

Sixteen years on from his last stand-up comedy tour, Sayle returned in 2011 as an MC, compering the middle section of ''At Last!

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.

He has toured extensively in recent years.

Sayle's early work included several performances for Capital London.

Sayle returned to Radio 4 in 2016 with Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar, which has run for four 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.