'Enlightening ... Funny, smart, original and provocative ... It is hard to imagine the stalwarts of Mock the Weekrecognising the Druze militia leader Walid Jumblatt in a London cinema' NEW STATESMAN
'Few standups have come close to capturing a fraction of this creative energy in a book ... Alexei Sayle is an exception' GUARDIAN
"What I brought to comedy was an authentic working-class voice plus a threat of genuine violence - nobody in Monty Python looked like a hard case who'd kick your head in."
In 1971, comedians on the working men's club circuit imagined that they would be free to continue telling their tired, racist, misogynistic gags forever. But their nemesis, a nineteen-year-old Marxist art student, was slowly coming to meet them ...
Thatcher Stole My Trousers chronicles a time when comedy and politics united in electrifying ways. Recounting the founding of the Comedy Store, the Comic Strip and the Young Ones, and Alexei's friendships with the comedians who - like him - would soon become household names, this is a unique and beguiling blend of social history and memoir. Fascinating, funny, angry and entertaining, it is a story of class and comedy, politics and love, fast cars and why it's difficult to foul a dwarf in a game of football.
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"Sums up the dualities of the period under discussion perfectly. He might be best known as a stand-up comic but Sayle is also a fine writer and fierce raconteur." -- The Guardian (Book of the Day)
"An affectionate account of a group of performers who transformed British comedy." -- Sunday Times
"I devoured the first chapters of Sayle's terrific second volume of memoirs . . . Thatcher Stole My Trousers, but he changed my life." **** -- Mail on Sunday
"This is an unexpected delight . . . An observant and wry account of Sayle's young adulthood in which the jokes creep up on the reader, as unexpectedly as the philosophical insights." -- The Independent
"Hilarious . . . Refreshingly different." -- The Herald
"A reminder of an era when comedians wanted to change the world as much as make us laugh." -- Sunday Post
"Enlightening . . . Funny, smart, original and provocative stuff . . . I laughed out loud." - New Statesman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Liverpool, the only child of Communist parents, Alexei Sayle became the first MC of the Comedy Store and later the Comic Strip. After years of stand-up, television, sitcoms, films and even a hit single, he published his first highly acclaimed collection of short stories. Barcelona Plates was followed by The Dog Catcher, two novels--Overtaken and The Weeping Women Hotel, and a novella, Mister Roberts. The first volume of Alexei's memoirs was Stalin Ate My Homework. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Read more Continue reading Read less
