Dave Allen

This article is about comedian Dave Allen. For other people, see David Allen .

Dave Allen (real name David Tynan O'Mahony , born July 6, 1936 in Dublin , † March 10, 2005 in London ) was an Irish comedian .

He was best known in the United Kingdom , Australia and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s , and then also in the USA thanks to reruns of his shows on public television . After a four-year absence from television from 1986, his career made a comeback in 1990. Some programs were also broadcast in Germany by WDR and in Switzerland , so that a small fan base also formed in these countries. In the German dubbing, he was voiced by the Berlin actor Joachim Kemmer .

His relaxed style was typical of Allen's shows: he sat on a bar stool on stage, occasionally sipping a glass. He made people believe it contained whiskey, but in fact it was just ginger ale with ice. In his previous shows he also smoked. Between his monologues he played skits that he had worked out with great care .

All went through what he saw as a too rigid Catholic upbringing, with which he later justified his aversion to anything religious. One of his legendary funny sayings is: "I'm an atheist, thank God!" In his shows he regularly mocked religious rites and authorities, which he repeatedly aroused the anger of conservative forces. In 1977 Irish state television RTÉ established a de facto boycott of Allen after one of his skits showed the Pope, played by himself, and his cardinals, dancing on the stairs of St. Peter's Church in the style of a Parisian striptease revue .

In the shows from 1990 onwards, his now extremely rude language led to heated controversy, which in January 1990 even caused a debate in the British House of Commons . Nevertheless, friends and colleagues, such as vaudeville star Sophie Tucker, describe him as an affable, amiable person, surrounded by charismatic charm and a cheerful melancholy.

His other topics were scenes taken from real life, such as queuing at the post office counter, the announcements on the plane, the express checkout in the supermarket, but also the peculiarities of the English language, etc.

Allen always ended his shows by raising his glass and toasting his audience with the words: “Good night, thank you and be your God with you”, a legendary closing phrase that marked his amiable style.

Allen scoured several newspapers daily and made notes for ideas that he then developed in his shows. His style and technique had a huge impact on many young comedians in the UK.

biography

Dave Allen was born David O'Mahoney on July 6, 1936 in Firhouse, County Dublin, Ireland, to Cully Tynan O'Mahoney, executive editor of the Irish Times , and an English mother. He graduated from the secondary schools of Newbridge and Terenure and the Catholic University School , left them at 16 and entered the Drogheda Argus as a copy boy (run boy) . At 19 he went to London, where he did several odd jobs and became an animator at Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness , where British jazz trumpeter and author John Chilton also performed. He then appeared in striptease clubs , initially with Al Page , whom he had met at Butlin's, and as an entertainer in nightclubs, theaters and workers' clubs for the next four years. Whenever he barely had any engagements, he worked in a department store in Sheffield and also as a door-to-door salesman for Windffang.

On the advice of his agent, he changed his stage name to "Allen"; the agent believed few people in England could pronounce the name "O'Mahony" correctly.

Allen lost the tip of his left index finger after getting into a machine gear with him. He told various stories on his shows such as how this happened, like his brother John bit him off when they were little children, or that he did it himself to avoid military service. In one of his shows he also told a lengthy ghost story, at the end of which "something evil" attacked him in a dark haunted house, whereupon he bit down and then found out in the light that the evil was his own left hand.

Allen's first television appearance was on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959 . At the beginning of 1962 he appeared in the opening act of a pop music tour with Helen Shapiro in England, on which the Beatles, who were almost completely unknown at the time, also appeared. In the same year he went on a tour in South Africa and performed with the vaudeville star Sophie Tucker . On her advice, he made a tour in Australia in 1963, which was immediately very successful. He moved to Australia and hosted a talk show on Channel 9 , Tonight with Dave Allen . However, he was banned from screen six months after his television debut for “go and masturbate” during a live broadcast urging his show producer - who urged him to take a commercial break - so he did the interesting interview with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore could continue. The ban was discreetly lifted when it became clear that Allen's popularity was unbroken.

In 1964, after a brief affair with Eartha Kitt , Allen married the English actress Judith Stott (they divorced in 1983). The son of the two, Edward James O'Mahoney (stage name Ed Allen), is also a comedian. His wife was determined to return to England, Allen agreed, and the two moved to London at the end of 1964. Allen has now made a number of appearances on Independent Television (ITV), including The Blackpool Show , Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium and the BBC on the Val Doonican Show . In 1967 Allen got his first comedian show Tonight with Dave Allen at ITV , which won him the Variety Club's ITV Personality of the Year Award . In 1969 he moved to the BBC , where he introduced the Dave Allen Show . This was followed by Dave Allen at Large from 1971 to 1979 , who introduced his way of telling stories and jokes while he was smoking and drinking on a bar stool, interrupted by pre-made sketches. During this time, Allen also did the Dave Allen Show in Australia (1975-1977) for his former employer, Channel 9 in Australia. For a summary of his show David Allen at Large , he won a Silver Rose at the Rose d'Or in Montreux , Switzerland , one of the world's most important festivals for television entertainment (now in Lucerne ) in 1975 . That same year he had six performances at the Theater Royal in Oslo , Norway , which were received with enthusiasm. In contrast, a brief stint on Broadway in New York was a failure.

After the end of 1979, the highly successful show David Allen at Large satisfied Allen with occasional performances and made after the tragic death of his brother John in 1986 again starts a tour to Australia. With that he disappeared from the television screen for the time being.

In 1990 followed, surprisingly for many, a new edition of six episodes of the show in England, now simply called Dave Allen . Although the bar stool was still on the stage, Allen now stood for the entire show. His rude language caused angry protests from many viewers, and the show could no longer build on the success of the previous ones. In 1993 he returned to ITV, where he appeared on his last regular series Dave Allen . In 1996 he was recognized for his life's work at the British Comedy Awards .

In the late 1990s, Allen took partial retirement and only made occasional appearances. Among other things, he presented his six-part series The Unique Dave Allen on the BBC in 1998 , in which he talked about his career between clips and excerpts from his earlier programs. Now he showed in his performances a painful awareness of aging, on the one hand talking about the antics of the teenagers, on the other hand about his skin, which has become saggy with age and the hair that has become gray and less, but now sprouting in other, unfamiliar parts of the body.

Allen's hobbies also included painting, which he became increasingly enthusiastic about in his later years. In 2001 his first exhibition, Private Views , took place in Edinburgh .

In addition to his work as a comedian, Allen also made several serious television documentaries, including 1969 Dave Allen in the Melting Pot and 1974 In Search of the Great Eccentrics and Eccentrics at Play , all for ITV.

He also completed a successful stage career. In 1972 he appeared as Dr. Daly in Edna O'Brien's play A Pagan Place , a Royal Court Theater production , and as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan , a Coliseum Theater London production . In 1979 he played an impoverished man in a midlife crisis in Alan Bennett's TV movie One Fine Day .

Allen spent his last few years in partial retirement in Kensington , West London, receiving regular visits from his closest friends and family. As a hobby painter, he continued to exhibit his pictures. He had long since given up smoking, which he publicly celebrated during his performances in the 1970s.

He died peacefully in his sleep on March 10, 2005 at the age of 68. He left behind his wife Karin O'Mahoney-Stark, who had only been married to him for 18 months, and his three children June (* 1965), Edward (* 1968) and Cullum (* 2005).

literature

• Graham McCann (Ed.): The Essential Dave Allen, Hodder and Stoughton, London 2005, ISBN 034089945X .

Web links

• Obituary in "The Television Heaven - TV Greats"
• Obituary in the "Telegraph" (English)