A few months ago, I was professionally obliged to ask a British comic actor about his recent memoir and what had prompted it. His answer – “The publisher hopes it can shift 1,000 copies’ worth of stocking fillers” – was both enlightening and dispiriting. Such books have become a staple of the high street shelves and landmarks of the publishing year but, apart from unhinged fans, it is hard to imagine anyone embarking on them with a glad heart or the thrill of anticipation.
Not so Alexei Sayle’s new memoir, the worst thing about which is its “zany” title that gives no indication of the funny, smart, original and provocative stuff within. For the past two decades or so, Sayle, who can claim with some justification to have invented modern British comedy (and frequently does just that with a disarming lack of false modesty), has styled himself as a “proper writer” of both fiction and memoir. Even after his recent return to onstage comedy, he has embraced the literary life with gusto, sensibly preferring the country houses of upmarket book festivals to the Novotels of the stand-up life.
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