âUllo Alexei! Gotta New Novel?
Monday, June 07, 2004
It seems to have been one of the best kept secrets of literature and comedy. Somewhere, some time, that loud, in-yer-face comedian Alexei Sayle left the world of comedy and became a brilliant author.
When his first anthology of short stories, Barcelona Plates, was published, it was in all the shops, but I donât remember reading much about it. Same with his second collection, The Dog Catcher, but I must have been more cashed up by that stage, because I not only bought a hard cover copy of it for myself, but also gave a couple away as birthday gifts.
I was truly amazed at the quality of the writing â funny, clever, perceptive, with great imagination. Each one with a little twist at the end, sometimes hilarious, sometimes macabre like Roald Dahlâs Tales of the Unexpected. This was genuinely surprising because I was the kind of Alexei Sayle fan who had read his other, earlier books, Train to Hell and Great Bus Journeys of the World. They were like his records, in that, they were like his stand-up: drawing from that surreal, in-yer-face, absurdist vein of humour that Alexei Sayle practically copyrighted. Barcelona Plates and The Dog Catcher were so different. The short stories they contained were still funny, but they were less self-conscious in their content and execution.
Cut to the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Thereâs a Writerâs Festival going on at the same time, and by the time I get myself organised enough to check out the program, I discover that Iâve missed Alexei Sayle by a day. It appears that he has written his âfirstâ novel (if you donât take Train to Hell into account) and itâs called Overtaken . One day Iâm walking passing the OxFam shop in the centre of Edinburgh, and notice a sign that informs me that Iâve missed Alexei Sayle by a couple of hours. I can at least buy an autographed copy of Overtaken that heâs donated to the shop. Reading it, I realise something vital: even as Sayle has graduated to writing proper, full length novels that are less like his stand-up than his original âzanyâ attempts, there are themes and issues present throughout his work, from the stand-up to the âseriousâ literature. Furthermore, even his stand-up had a knowing, declamatory style that was as much story-telling as it was stand-up.
Cut to the 2004 Sydney Writersâ Festival: Alexei Sayle is out here to talk about his book. I am so grateful to have been able to catch up with him for a chat. From the outset, I probably should have made more of his writing. Thereâs so much in it: his descriptions of architecture, the Liverpudlian underworld, music, comedy, culture, cars, philosophy and politics betray a great deal of knowledge. However, this was our first chat; we had a lot of ground to cover. Next time Iâll concentrate solely on discussing his books, rather than the themes that link what heâs doing now to everything heâs done before.
At least Alexei didnât seem to mind about having to cover old ground. He graciously autographed my twelve-inch single of âDidnât You Kill My Brother?â that I bought as a teenager who usually saved his pocket shrapnel for Beatles and David Bowie singles. He cacked when I told him how my mother hit the roof when she first heard it, disgusted that I would spend my money on this sort of record. But that was then. This is now. If you havenât read any of Alexei Sayleâs more recent literature, I recommend you start almost immediately with The Dog Catcher. And if youâve never heard any of his stand-up, thatâs your loss. Start with The Young Ones on DVD, and hope that Alexei Sayleâs Stuff is re-issued soon. Grab The Secret Policemanâs Other Ball on CD if you can find it, or hunt down his album Panic if you can. But do read his books.
This interview was broadcast 22 May 2004. Hereâs the MP3 if you want to listen as you read.
Soundbite: âMeanwhileâ â from the single of the same name.
Alexei Sayle: It was just another day for Raoul, the Tasmanian with the talking trousers, as he put a lizard into each top hat. Little did he realise that opportunity would soon come a-knocking in the shape of a giant Idaho potato which bore a strange resemblance to the late J. Edgar Hoover, right down to the striped spatula with the words âhokey kokeyâ written on it in yellow inkâ¦âGirlieâ Chorus: Meanwhile,
In another part of town,
Just a-a-a-a
Few miles away,
Seventeen years ago,
Later that very same day.
Demetrius Romeo: Alexei, before you became an author, you were famous as a stand-up comic.
ALEXEI SAYLE: Indeed.
Demetrius Romeo: How was it to make the transition, and why did you make it?
ALEXEI SAYLE: Well, I think Iâd sort of personally reached the end of a stage of my life of being a comedian. I didnât really have the commitment to the life to want to do a hundred shows a year, which I think you really have to do to refresh your material and yourself, and I couldnât really face that. So I was casting around for something else to do and I started writing short stories. That became the sole thing that I did, really.
Demetrius Romeo: You were writing books before that â your first couple of books were closer to your comedy that to the books youâre writing now.
ALEXEI SAYLE: Yes.
Demetrius Romeo: Did you make a conscious effort to reign in that side of your writing psyche?
ALEXEI SAYLE: Well, probably initially, writing those âzanyâ books in the 80s was in a sense a lack of confidence in stretching myself, in a way; staying closer to my core kind of performing style, but when I started writing the short stories I really wanted to get away, to really do some serious literature. I mean, itâs still comical and satirical, but itâs aiming as high as you can â itâs âproperâ literature. Thatâs sort of, by then, what I really wanted to do, to distance myself from the âCoco the Clownâ, the previous incarnation.
Demetrius Romeo: Was it a large stretch to go from the anthologies of short stories to the novel?
ALEXEI SAYLE: No, it was a natural progression, really, but it was one I took the time to work up to, not to force myself to do it until I was ready to do it, really.
Soundbite: âUllo John, Gotta New Motor? â Part IIIâ â from the twelve-inch single of the same name.
Alexei Sayle: What a lovely motor the Cortina is, eh? What a lovely motor. What style. What lines. What beauty. What poetry, eh? All that poetry in a motor. âEre. Ever see Wordsworth do anything like a Cortina, eh? âE didnât did âe, eh? Tennyson? Eh? Any of that? Any of them? Any of them fellers, eh? Didnât do anything as poetic as a Cortina.
Demetrius Romeo: I can see similar themes that have been with your work from early on. Transportation is something you seem to like to talk about at length. Where does this interest come from?
ALEXEI SAYLE: Well, I donât know. I mean, itâs partly⦠well, probably, I think, me dad worked on the railways, so thatâs maybe one of the inspirations. And also, we never had a car, so I always had a kind of slightly âoutsiderâ view of cars. They seemed like âmiraculousâ kind of contrivances, really, so Iâve always been interested in cars. But then Iâm also interested in the kind of landscape â motorways at nightâ¦
Soundbite: ââUllo John! Gotta New Motor? â Part IIIâ â from the twelve-inch single of the same name.
Alexei Sayle: Ullo John, gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
âUllo John! Gotta new motor?
Demetrius Romeo: I imagine in stand-up you get to fluff a lot of facts for the sake of the gag, but when I read your books, you have a very real respect for knowledge. Where does this come from?
ALEXEI SAYLE: I do, but then a lot of it is also made up. I donât like novels that are meticulously researched, particularly; I sometimes find that tedious. A lot of writing, especially books or authors or creators have a narrow remit; before my comedy, the subject matters were incredibly narrow. Why canât you do a stand-up comedy routine about Bertolt Brecht or architecture or electrical design. All of those things Iâve done routines about.
Soundbite: Alexei Sayle monologue from âBoringâ, Season 1 Episode 4 of The Young Ones
Alexei Sayle: Iâve not always been mad, you know, but um... I was actually driven mad by the indifference of architects and council planners. You see, I live in a tower block, and um, the thing about those is, thereâs terrible noise problems, âcause thereâs no noise insulation at all, you know, and eight floors below you, there's always some bastard who's got a Yamaha home organ, you know. Youâre just about to go to sleep and you hear this âDOOT DOOT! TCH-TCH, DOOT DOOT! TCH-TCH, ROLL-OUT-THE-BARRELS! DOOT-DOOT, TCH-TCH, DOOT DOOT, TCH-TCHâ And like, the people who live upstairs from me, I canât understand what theyâre doing, you know, I listen. And all I can hear is this weird noise that goes, âVOOM VOOM! BLAM BLAM! VOOM VOOM! BLAM BLAM!â It sounds, right, it sounds like two elephants on a motorbike riding round and round, while a seal bangs a kipper on the table!
Demetrius Romeo: You were brought up as a communist and I notice Eastern bloc characters peopling your work throughout your careerâ¦
ALEXEI SAYLE: Well, obviously, a large part of my childhood I spent â weâd spend â in Eastern Europe and it was kind of like stepping through a curtain into fairy tale. When youâd cross the border in the train between, say, Austria and Czechoslovakia, everything was different. The trucks used to run on this sort of evil-smelling diesel and there was one brand of toothpaste in the shops, âtoothpokâ or something. There was no advertising, there was only abstract art where the advertising billboards would normally be, and it was just this incredible kind of strange other universe that nobody else went to apart from us, really, me and me mum and dad.
Soundbite: âDedicatedâ â from the flipside of the âDidnât You Kill My Brother?â single.
Alexei Sayle: ⦠and Iâd also like to dedicate this song to the people of Czechoslovakia, excluding Mr and Mrs Oleg Potseg, 49 Volaches, Prague 18â¦
Demetrius Romeo: Who are your inspirations as a writer?
ALEXEI SAYLE: Evelyn Waugh is always someone that I cite as somebody who was kind of a social satirist, but also someone who could be very dark. I think itâs in âA Handful Of Dustâ, the moment when the woman â sheâs got this lover called John â and they tell her that her son John has been killed in a horse riding accident, but the groom says, âno, little Johnâ, and she says, âOh, thank God,â and then realises what sheâs said. I think thatâs one of the greatest and most chilling moments in literature, that. That somebody like Waugh could write something like that, I think thatâs staggering, and that was in the 30s. Amazing.
Demetrius Romeo: Having done your fair share now of comedy festivals and writersâ festivals, which do you prefer?
ALEXEI SAYLE: Oh, writing. I mean, youâre not really treated with as much respect as you should be, really, as a comic. I felt I wasnât, which is maybe just me being antsy, but youâre always treated a bit as a simpleton when youâre a comic, even though, you know, my references would be Kierkegaard and socialism and so on, whereas, as an author, youâre treated as being much more intelligent. Thereâs a kind of an implied âmaestroâ whenever anybody talks to you. And itâs a trade-off: youâre not as central to the culture anymore. You start having to start to wait longer for tables at the best restaurants, but in place of that, thereâs enormous satisfaction.
Soundbite: âMeanwhileâ â from the single of the same name.
Alexei Sayle: âOoh la la! Ooh la la!â chanted the traffic warden, but Steve was in no mood for Swedish volleyball that day. He swore to himself that if Erica came home again dressed as a chicken, he would tell the monopolies commission who had really been putting cream cakes in the Lord Mayor of Londonâs underpants. Then the avocado dip would really hit the fan.
Demetrius Romeo: Alexei Sayle, thank you very much.
ALEXEI SAYLE: Thank you.
Soundbite: âMeanwhileâ â from the single of the same name.
âGirlieâ Chorus: Meanwhile,
In another part of town,
Just a-a-a-a
Few miles away,
Seventeen years ago,
Later that very same day.Meanwhile,
In another part of town,
Just a-a-a-a
Few miles away,
Seventeen years ago,
Later that very same day.