Friends to celebrate comic's life as his health fails

Friends of alternative comedy pioneer Tony Allen are organising a farewell gig for him after he was diagnosed with cancer.

The event is described as a wake for the 78-year-old  ‘while he is still alive, where he can be guest of honour’.

Allen was instrumental in creating the modern comedy scene when he and Alexei Sayle set up a collective of politically motivated performers called Alternative Cabaret in 1979, with an ethos borrowed from punk and radical theatre.

They staged gigs at the Elgin pub on Ladbroke Grove, West London, and began the tradition of comedians taking solo stand-up acts to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1980. Allen would continue to attend until the mid-1990s

Allen was also the second compere at the Comedy Store – after Sayle and before Ben Elton – and has been a regular at Speakers’ Corner.

He was recently diagnosed with cancer – having beaten the disease before – and also suffers from a number of age-related conditions. So friends have decided to throw a ‘going away party’ near his West London home.

One of them, the stand-up and artist Becky Fury, said Allen described the event as a ‘woke wake’, adding: ‘He can still be very lucid and funny.’

She said the celebration – to be titled This Was Your Life –  will be a ‘taboo-busting,  life-affirming, radical comic event to celebrate the end of a life well lived’.

‘It’s in keeping with Tony’s ethos of being at the heart of the new and the now,’ she told Chortle.

‘This event has been created because like when a marathon runner needs people to cheer them on when they’re getting to the finishing line and they’re tired. He might need something like that right now – a bit of collective love to help him get to the finishing line and then whatever exists beyond that point.’

The gig will be held at the Quiet Night Inn in Westbourne Park  on July 27, and organisers are crowdfunding for the production costs and to cover livestreaming.

Sayle has joked that  ‘any comic who has ever done Edinburgh festival owes him and Tony Allen a cut’, given their pioneering work at the Fringe.

Fury also put out an appeal to anyone who wants to tell a story about Allen or say ‘something appropriate or inappropriate’ at the gig – either live or prerecorded –  to get in touch via thiswasyourlifeevent@gmail.com.

She added: ‘Some interesting performers and stalwarts of the alternative comedy circuit have already said they’ll contribute. He liked the idea [of the ‘wake’] and thought it was funny and thoughtful. He may be getting a bit forgetful but he hasn’t forgotten to keep a good sense of humour about it

‘He’s old and has lived very fully and as a result he’s got a few age related issues… which are the result of his body and mind having served him very well and now he’s worn out.

‘He also has cancer. Which he already beat once like an absolute trouper. But it’s come back and this time he’s decided it’s time to say goodbye.’

» Donate to the crowdfunding campaign

» Tony Allen and others on the origins of alternative comedy

» Review of Tony Allen’s book Attitude! Wanna Make Something of it? The Secret of Stand-up Comedy

Published: 26 May 2023