Merseyside Mirth Makers - Alexei Sayle

Alexei Sayle

Born on the 7th of August 1952, Alexei David Sayle was born and raised in Anfield and attended Anfield Road Junior School from 1958 to 1964 followed by Alsop High School, Walton from 1964 to 1969, although he was expelled halfway through the sixth form. Following that he took a foundation course in Art at Southport College of Art before moving south to attend Chelsea School of Art and Design in London. Unemployed for four years, he decided to attend Garnett College Roehampton, a training college for teachers in Further Education where he obtained a degree, got offered a job at the college and did his teacher training for the first year of his career, teaching during the day and then cycling to gigs at night.

MC at The Comedy Store

In 1979 he became the original MC for the Comedy Store and was also in the series 'Alexei Sayle and the Fish People' for Capital 95.8 about Alexei working as a council funded community detective on a housing estate in Stoke Newington. He and David Stafford won the Pye radio award that year. It was during his time at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980 that he was contacted by Peter Richardson who wanted to move all the best acts at the Comedy Store to Raymonds Revue Bar in Soho and wanted Alexie to be the MC. The regular lineup would be Alexei, Arnold Brown, French and Saunders, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson.

Landlord Mr. Balowski in The Young Ones

 

This would lead to a revolution in British comedy as this group presented the initial series of  'The Young Ones' and 'The Comic Strip Presents' revealing Alexei as one of the UK's most enduring comedians, an integral part of the Alternative Comedy movement of the early 1980's that would take this art form to new edgy and controversial levels. This was followed by plenty of TV work and several movies before he made the first of six series in 1988 for the BBC called 'Alexei Sayle’s Stuff' followed by 'The All New Alexei Sayle Show'.

Finally, after giving up stand-up comedy in 1996 and casting around for what to do next, he eventually discovered fiction writing and the world of publishing together with column writing for various publications.He has also released five comedy singles with full musical backing.
In 2008 he did 'Alexei Sayle's Liverpool' a BBC 2 Documentary series. He said 'This was the first series with my name on it for ten years and I was really pleased both with the reception and the viewing figures. There are so many poor documentaries around these days, full of false jeopardy and fake emotion so I thought it was important to tell Liverpool’s story in an honest and genuine way.'

In 2007 he was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups. In the updated 2010 poll he came 72nd.

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