“There can never have been a popular entertainer quite like me,” writes Alexei Sayle in his new book, “and almost certainly there never will be again.” That sounds rather vainglorious in print but has the advantage of being true: the list of comedians who were raised by committed communists but went on to revolutionise stand-up comedy, have hit BBC television shows and record a No 1 hit single is short and features only his name.
It is easy to forget just how successful Sayle was in the late 80s. He was everywhere: on television with his BBC show Alexei Sayle’s Stuff; in films with roles in Gorky Park and 8; on stage at the Old Vic in The Tempest, directed by Jonathan Miller; and even in the charts with his No 1 hit single “‘Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?”
Sayle has told his story in two volumes of memoir: Stalin Ate My Homework and Thatcher Stole My Trousers. He was planning on calling his new book Blair Boiled My Cat, but in the end he decided to make less a conventional memoir and more a story of his life as told through nine political marches he’s been on, starting in 1959 and ending in 2025.
How I’ve Tried to Change the World: By Walking Down the Middle of the Street Shouting is a story about activism but also about the ongoing tension between Sayle’s political principles and his personal ambitions. Sayle loves going on marches. “It’s very moving,” he says over a flat white in a café near his Bloomsbury home. “In the early days, I was often in floods of tears from both a sense of community and a sense of outrage.”
