Background

Alexei Sayle was born on August 7, 1952, in Anfield, Liverpool, England, United Kingdom. He is a son of Joseph Henry and Molly (Malka) Sayle. Sayle grew up in Liverpool, England in the 1950s and 1960s. His parents had settled there after emigrating from Lithuania. Sayle’s father was a guard for British Rail. His mother was of Lithuanian Jewish descent and his father was English.

Education

From 1964 to 1969 Alexei Sayle studied at Alsop High School. From 1969 to 1971 Sayle was a student of the Southport College of Art. From 1971 to 1974 he attended the Chelsea School of Art (now Chelsea College of Arts). He received a Certificate of Education from Garnett College, Roehampton.

Career

After studying painting at the Chelsea School of Arts, Alexei Sayle worked in a variety of menial jobs before joining a touring cabaret troupe and appeared in the film Repeater (1979). From 1979 to 1980 he was a drama lecturer at North London College Holloway. From 1980 to 1981 he worked as a comedian at Comic Strip Club. Sayle has enjoyed cameos in high-profile Hollywood films such as Gorky Park (1983) and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989). He toured extensively with his stand-up show and has written a number of books. In 1998 he was a producer of television series, Merry-Go-Round.

He is an actor in television series, including Young Ones, 1982-1984, Alexei Sayle's Stuff (also staff writer), 1988-1989, 1991, The Gravy Train, 1990, All New Alexei Sayle Show (also staff writer), 1994-1995, etc. as well as an actor in films, including The Bride (1985), The Strike (1987), Reckless Kelly (1992), Rhinoceros Hunting in Budapest (1997), and Swing (1998), etc.

After many years of performing in stand-up shows, film, and television (such as The Young Ones), Alexei began his second career as a writer. His first book, Train to Hell (1982), is a parody of travelogues by writers like Paul Theroux or Bruce Chatwin. Instead of traveling to exotic locales at the far ends of the earth, Sayle, a writer in Variety, stated, "has to settle for the Football Special from Liverpool to Rome" - football being the British and European term for what Americans call soccer. The sport enjoys a passionate following in Europe and Great Britain. Sayle’s persona in the book resembles a scoop reporter, but he quickly gives up any pretense of objectivity. The novel includes a mysterious murder and ends in a shoot-out at Habitat (a trendy home furnishings store) - and Sayle never describes the soccer match which is the ostensible focus of his trip. This book received mixed reviews.

Alexei Sayle’s Great Bus Journeys of the World (1988), a collection of his columns of the same title from Time Out. His other books include Barcelona Plates (2000), The Dog Catcher (2001), Overtaken (2003), etc. On November 3, 2006, he presented Chopwell Soviet. Sayle returned to Radio 4 in 2016 with Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar. In 2019, he narrated the dramatization of four of his short stories in the series Alexei Sayle's The Absence of Normal, again on Radio 4.

Achievements

• Alexei Sayle was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007. He is also best known as the author of Stalin Ate My Homework and Thatcher Stole My Trousers. His books received high praise from critics. In 1995 he was awarded an honorary professorship by Thames Valley University. In 2017 Sayle received an honorary doctor of literature degree from Edge Hill University.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Barcelona Plates

    (A septuagenarian contract killer, a chronic hypochondriac...)

    2000
  • The Dog Catcher

    (The acclaimed Barcelona Plates revealed Alexei Sayle as a...)

    2001
  • Train to Hell

    (This is a travel book, a murder mystery with a difference...)

    1982
  • Thatcher Stole My Trousers

    (Thatcher Stole My Trousers chronicles a time when comedy ...)

    2016
  • Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar

    (Alexei Sayle reveals his true vocation: proprietor of an ...)

    2017
  • Overtaken

    (Kelvin is a 33-year-old property developer living in a sm...)

    2003
  • Stalin Ate My Homework

    (Alexei Sayle was born in Liverpool on the day egg rationi...)

    2010
  • The Bride

    (Dr. Frankenstein builds the perfect woman - and lives to ...)

    1985
  • Great Bus Journeys of the World 1988
  • Weeping Women Hotel 2006
  • Mister Roberts 2008

• movie

  • Solarbabies

    (This futuristic tale features the top talents of Hollywoo...)

    1986
  • Arabian Nights

    (Scheherazade buys time - and her life - by telling storie...)

    2000
  • Gorky Park

    (Three mutilated bodies are found in Moscow's Gorky Park, ...)

    1983
  • Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

    (The Nazis are on the trail of the Holy Grail, and have ki...)

    1989
  • The Supergrass 1985
  • Siesta 1987

• TV series

  • The Secret Policeman's Balls: The Secret Policeman's Other Ball

    (The very first show in what came to be called the "Secret...)

    1982

Religion

Alexei Sayle told about his family: "My parents' religion was communism, but I think Molly was, and is, very Jewish, and I am Jewish, as far as the Gestapo is concerned, or Israel, though I don't know if they'd have me in Israel given what I've said about them. And communism is a Jewish invention."

Politics

On the question in the interview "Sayle grew up in a communist household and used to be billed as a Marxist comedian. Is he still a Marxist?", Alexei Sayle answered: "Yes, I think so. Marxism is an analysis of history and I still broadly agree with that. Capitalism, if you live in the good bits, is pretty fantastic, but if you live in the wrong bits it's a catastrophe. Of course, I don't agree with all the things that have been done in the name of Marx – I'm not a Marxist-Leninist and I never was, and I think Marx would have been appalled at the things that went on in the Soviet Union and other states that have claimed to be Marxist. But people have always had this capacity to take someone's wise words and utterly pervert them. It happens with religion too."

Sayle told about Margaret Thatcher: "She's just a sad old lady who's died. I won't be celebrating really. I've got no affection for her. She was a vindictive, mean, and petty-minded person and I think we're seeing in the language coming from the Tories now that vindictiveness and meanness are still prevalent. But her power also came as a result of the profound failure in the old-fashioned authoritarian left. There's a degree of show-business about politics and to elect someone like Michael Foot was insane. Even Neil Kinnock was a pretty unattractive person. Scargill [trade union leader Arthur Scargill] was an utterly incompetent leader."

Sayle was himself a staunch supporter of the left-wing of Labour during the 1980s. In a comment piece written for the Guardian in 2016, he said that while he was perfectly happy to mock New Labour in his act, now that Jeremy Corbyn was about to "reform the party in his own image – ascetic, socialist, kindly and ethical" he would stop making jokes about it. He also said: "I believed in the aims and objectives of the left, I suppose, but a lot of my humor has always been about satirizing the left."

Views

Alexei Sayle counts Evelyn Waugh as his greatest influence. He is also a critic of fox hunting.

Quotations: "There's a part of me that still hates everything, and my natural view default setting is still very cynical and dark."

"I think that my ideas of the world are that it's random and cruel but kind of quite comical really, and therefore the humour, in a sense, springs from that."

"People aren't universally heroic."

Membership

Alexei Sayle is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Chelsea Arts Club. In 1981 he was one of the founding members of the Comic Strip Club in London.

Personality

Alexei Sayle is a keen cyclist. He has been cycling in London for more than thirty years.

Interests

• walking

• Writers

  Anne Tyler, Iris Murdoch, Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Evelyn Waugh

• Sport & Clubs

  cycling

Connections

In 1974, Alexei Sayle married Linda Rawsthorn.

Father:

Joseph Henry Sayle

Mother:

Malka Sayle

Friend:

Christoph Waltz

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2010
• The Official Website of Alexei Sayle