If there was ever a man destined to personify the lovable rogue with a dark
side, then surely Keith Allen is your chap. On the one hand, there's
the time in prison, the tangled love life (he's rumoured to have up to eight
children by various women) and the notorious hellraising. On the other,
there are the pranks, pop songs and the devilish charm which lets rip with
surreal flights of fancy, such as organising the London Gay Male Choir to
sing Jerusalem on the pitch at Wembley. His latest role, as Long John Silver
in a new stage production of Treasure Island, which opens this week, is in
the same roguish tradition.
But no matter how Allen, 55, performs, he's largely known these days for two
things; being singer Lily's Allen's dad and for those schoolboyish capers,
such as his 1998 World Cup anthem Vindaloo, performed with Damien Hirst and
Alex James. “Well, I think if I saw [these pranks] I would think I'm glad
someone did that. And then you think why not do it yourself?' I'm not your
dyed-in-the-wool anarchist, far from it. But if I don't do what I do, who
will?”
His dizzyingly varied 30-year career began in stand-up around 1980 at the
Comedy Store, with appearances in several Comic Strip films providing his
big launch pad. He has since done acclaimed work in everything from Martin
Chuzzlewit to the Sheriff of Nottingham in a BBC production of Robin Hood
via Miss Marple. Then there's the odd provocative documentary, notably Keith
Allen Will Burn In Hell, in which he mercilessly teased a family of devout
Americans about their homophobia. Did he ever have a game plan? “What do you
think?” he says, wryly.
A spell in borstal was “brilliant”
Allen grew up in Swansea, the son of a naval officer and a waitress. When his
father was posted to Singapore, he was sent to boarding school, from which
he was eventually expelled. He seems to have been in trouble ever since,
eventually ending up in borstal - he says he has forgotten why. “Borstal? It
was brilliant,” he enthuses, laughing off my disquiet. “By the time I got
there I had already been to a remand home, a detention centre, a public
school and a comprehensive school, so I had a pretty good idea of what an
institution was.
“I met some wonderful people, including a prison officer who became my mentor.
I got six O Levels. I played all the sport I wanted. I loved it. The key to
it all was that I never once felt like a criminal. Ever.”
Some years later, in 1984, when Allen spent three weeks in Pentonville (for
trashing the Zanzibar club in Covent Garden), he again refused to let the
prison dent his bravado. “I went to meet the governor, and blow me down, but
he had been my governor at borstal!” Allen hoots. “He looked at me and said,
‘God, Allen, I didn't think I'd ever see you again!' And I said, ‘I didn't
think I'd meet you again'. But I was only there for three weeks. It was
fine.” Particularly, as his showbiz mates met him in a limo afterwards, with
a brace of photographers there to record the moment.
Just five years earlier, Allen had been scraping a living, albeit with his
signature chutzpah, while gigging at the Comedy Store. “When we weren't
working, me and my first wife [Alison Owen, mother of Lily and his actor son
Alfie] would go and make sandwiches and sell them in offices. We would sell
beer at parties. We would turn up with a van full of beer and sell it. We
would do anything to make money, just to make money to live by. We turned up
at a party in Sting's house once.”
Was he never worried that, without a game plan, his life might just slide into
meaninglessness? “I have never been the kind of person who would hang about
wondering and worrying about the next job. It's not about not caring. It's
about not worrying ... Plus, I come from a generation, probably the last
generation, whose parents had a work ethic instilled into them.”
Allen's risk-taking, since the days of handing out £1 cans of lager to pop
superstars, has clearly paid off. He has been rehearsing hard for his latest
role as a pirate, complete with a peg leg (a prosthetics marvel,
apparently), in Treasure Island.
Predictably, a lot of the action revolves around pieces of eight, Ahoy there
me hearties, and swinging around on ropes. And, yes, there's a parrot.
“Sailors were used in the original Victorian theatres because they were
great at all the rope-work for flying the scenery in and out, so it's quite
fitting to have Treasure Island as a stage show.” He has overcome initial
stage fright. “I was terrified of doing this, but now I'm not. I was
terrified of doing Robin Hood. It's just...the weight of expectation,” he
says. You'll get away with it, I say. “Yes, but that's not really being
successful, not really,” he counters, revealing an ambitious side that I
suspect he is typically at pains to conceal. “When I was a stand up, I would
come off stage sometimes and think F*** me, I got away with it'. Which means
that you haven't been publicly humiliated, but it's not very satisfying.”
Nevertheless, he is once again back in the spotlight after seeing Lily's and
Alfie's careers take off. Allen sighs when I ask him about his family and
heads outdoors for a cigarette. He tells me the internet has it all wrong,
but it is well documented that, as well as having Lily, 23, and Alfie, 22,
from his first marriage to Alison Owen, Allen was also married to producer
Nira Park, romancing many women over the years, including Julia Sawalha and
Janet Street-Porter. He now lives with the actress Tamzin Malleson, with
whom he has his youngest child; daughter Teddie, now 2.
“I've had a pretty interesting life,” he smiles tensely.
Can he tell me how many children he has, I ask politely. “Nobody knows the
truth about that.” Oh. Does he know? “Yes.” Can I make an educated guess?
“No.” He will, however, discuss Lily “because she's a pop star and it's in
the public domain”. “She's a smart cookie. She was very young when she
started, and she's got a gob on her, like me. She's very singular and would
rather learn by failure than by being steered through by some PR person. She
has to learn that sometimes it's better to be quiet.” Is he even a tiny bit
envious of her fame? “I don't understand why I would even entertain the
idea,” he says, offended. “When it all started it was quite a relief
actually. The papers had something else to write about.” Does she call on
her dad for advice? “Usually when she's very depressed. When she's not, she
certainly doesn't need to speak to me. That's the way it is.”
Lily appears to have inherited her father's hedonistic streak. Tales of Allen
smashing up night clubs and enjoying legendary sessions at the Groucho Club
are the stuff of showbiz lore. Not so, says Allen. “I've never really drunk.
It's a total myth about me.” Really? “I actually don't like the taste of
alcohol,” insists the quixotic Allen, “and don't understand people who do. I
only go out to get pissed.” He says he has turned his back on the London
party scene for the simple pleasures of country living. “I live in
Gloucestershire. That life, the London life, was all about going to the
Groucho Club and getting absolutely twatted. It was great then, but F*** me,
I wouldn't do it now. In Gloucestershire, the quality of life is so much
better. I love being able to walk my kid through a leafy country lane to go
to her nursery.”
He has swapped hell-raising for golf
The reformed Allen plays golf and does yoga. “I've started to do what I
believe started out as yoga,” Allen earnestly explains. “It certainly hasn't
ended up as yoga. It's called the Salutation to the Sun. I do it every
morning.”
Carbohydrates are off the menu as he tries to keep middle-aged spread at bay.
“All I do is not eat bread and potatoes. Weight falls off. And you
feel a lot better. The big thing though is not to drink.” He pauses.
“Actually, the really big thing is not to take drugs. That's the really big
thing.” When did you kick the drugs, then? “I've never really kicked them,”
he says. “I wouldn't go that far. But I do appreciate not taking them.”
Amid these myriad contradictions, does Allen have any guiding sense of
spirituality or political belief? “When I was a kid I was given a choice.
Did I want to be a Catholic or a Protestant? Well, if you take a kid of 8 on
to a naval complex and show them a creosote Nissen hut with about 20
up-their-own-arse English people or a massive High Catholic church at the
bottom of the hill, crammed with people in their Sunday best, with incense
and singing, and football outside with the other kids afterwards, which one
would you take? But I have never had time for religion,” he says. “It's just
ridiculous. I can quite understand what people need from it, and why it was
invented but I just don't buy into it. What am I? A libertarian with
socialist tendencies,” he laughs.
So, no regrets? “If I died tomorrow, I would die a very happy person. I am a
very lucky man. I get to do what I want to do.”
Treasure Island, starring Keith Allen, opens at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on
November 17. Box office: 0845 4811870 or at www.treasureislandtheplay.com
Man behaving badly
1953 Born in Llanelli, South Wales.
1964 Lost his virginity aged 11.
1968 Sent to borstal for thieving.
1980s Was a member of The Comic Strip team, writing, directing,
producing and starring in a number of shows.
1982 Married film producer Alison Owen.
1984 Spent three weeks in Pentonville prison for trashing a bar.
1985 Had daughter Lily Allen (now a singer).
1986 Had a son, Alfie Allen (now an actor).
1987 Left Alison Owen for producer Nira Park, whom he later married
(and divorced).
1995 Starred in the video for Blur's Country House.
1996 Played a drug dealer in Danny Boyle's cult film classic
Trainspotting.
1998 As Fat Les, composed the unofficial football song Vindaloo for the
1998 World Cup, along with Alex James of Blur, and Damien Hirst.
1999 Appeared as the evil tooth fairy in an advertisement for Listerine
mouthwash.
2006 Daughter Teddie was born with current girlfriend Tamzin Malleson.
Starred in Robin Hood on BBC One.
2007 Claims he had sex with Janet Street- Porter on a snooker table in
his autobiography Grow Up.
HARRIET ADDISON
