Festival to celebrate the roots of modern stand-up

The four members of an influential troupe of alternative comedy pioneers are to reunite next week.

Tony Allen, Pauline Melville, Andy De La Tour and Jim Barclay formed the politically motivated Alternative Cabaret movement in London in 1979, soon after they had met at the newly opened Comedy Store. 

Along with Alexei Sayle, the Store’s compere, they held a regular night in the  Elgin pub in Ladbroke Grove. Although it ran for less than a year, the non-racist, non-sexist, and radical agenda came to define the comedy of the era.

Sayle then left the group, although the remaining four staged a show at the Assembly Rooms during the 1981 Edinburgh Fringe, which then toured, before the team disbanded.

The quartet will now be interviewed together as part of the Alternative Comedy Now festival at the University of Kent next Friday.

Meanwhile, Sayle will be interviewed separately on Thursday as part of the same event, which marks 40 years since the birth of alternative comedy.

The festival also includes Jo Brand delivering the annual Linda Smith Lecture to open the festival on Wednesday May 1, and ‘Heroes of Alternative Cabaret’ gig to close it on Saturday 4. The line-up comprises Arthur Smith, Steve Gribbin, Arnold Brown, Attila the Stockbroker and Lorraine Bowen.

There is also an academic aspect to the event, featuring keynote speakers Sophie Quirk, a lecturer whose book, The Politics of British Stand-Up Comedy: The New Alternative, was published in December, and Dr Oliver Double, the stand-up who is the University of Kent’s head of comedy and popular performance. His next book, Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up, will be published later this year.

Other sessions will look at the modern equivalents of alternative comedy, whether a performance can be a political action, and on alternative comedy and gender, among others.

Also, an archive of material relating to the early alternative comedy movement, including publicity, photographs, press coverage, scripts, LP and, unpublished recordings, will go on display at the university for the duration of the festival

Click here for more details of the festival, and here for the academic conference.

Published: 26 Apr 2019