Today I popped on the tram up to the outskirts of the comedy festival to hear veteran comedian turned writer Alexei Sayle read at The Met in Bury. He may have given up stand up in favour of writing fiction - and now his autobiography - but nevertheless it was a truly hilarious hour and a half spent in his company. Far from just dryly reading from his memoirs Stalin Ate My Homework, the performance was invested with all the tics of his stand up routine - flamboyant arm waving and a childlike sense of fun.
The memoir itself is a fantastically entertaining read; Sayle’s idiosyncratic turn of phrase shines through and the prose is shot through with his strong sense of the absurd. Sayle’s childhood would be a comedic gift for any writer; the only child to communist parents his first extract encapsulates the difficulties and dichotomy of his early life in his parents refusing to let him see Disney’s Bambi and instead taking the young Alexei to see a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky and its depictions of child sacrifice. It’s a vividly drawn opening that’s pummelled for laughs. Elsewhere there is an outrageous depiction of his sweary Jewish mother and the farcical tale of the boiled eggs routinely left unconsumed before leaving for foreign travel.
As well as saying hi to the man himself and getting my copy of his book signed, I had the unexpected bonus that from my vantage point at the back of the room I ended up sat by and chatting to Alexei’s lovely wife Linda. Top night.