Dave Allen
A comic who dismantled authority from a stool with a drink.
2 specials · 1990–1993
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He works from a stool, dressed in a sharp suit, smoking a cigarette and nursing a glass. Dave Allen makes a theater feel like a pub after everyone else has gone home. There is no manic pacing. He sits cross-legged, takes a drag, and begins a story that sounds like idle complaining until you realize he has cornered his target. When he gestures, he lifts his left hand to reveal a missing fingertip. If he acknowledges the injury, he offers a wildly different, fabricated story about how it was severed—bitten off by his brother or chopped off by his father.
Specials
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Six episodes of stool-and-whiskey monologues that provoked questions in Parliament.
BBC One
On stage
In the 1970s and 1980s, his BBC broadcasts made him an international fixture. He proved a comic didn’t need vaudeville energy to hold a television audience. He mocked religious institutions when doing so invited genuine public outrage, yet delivered his complaints so calmly that viewers rarely looked away.
His bits escalate slowly. Allen avoids rapid-fire setups. He takes a minor irritation—the way adults talk to children, the logistics of a Catholic confession—and stretches it out to expose the absurdity of rigid rules. He treats dogma with weary amusement rather than fury. He ends his shows without a final punchline, simply raising his glass to the camera and saying: “May your God go with you”.
Raised in Ireland, his strict Catholic schooling provided the blueprint for his lifelong resentment of authority. That education gave him the exact kind of guilt he would spend four decades gently laughing out of the room.
Turning points
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1963–1964
Banned from Australian Television Airwaves
Six months into hosting Tonight with Dave Allen, Allen was banned from Australian broadcasts after telling his producer live on air to 'go away and masturbate' to continue interviewing Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
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Parliamentary Outcry Over BBC1 Profanity
Allen provoked complaints and questions in Parliament after using the f-word during a monologue in the opening episode of his 1990 BBC1 comedy series.
At a glance
- Born
- , Firhouse, Dublin, Ireland
- Died
- 2005
- On stage
- since 1959
- Style
- observational, satire, storytelling
- Breakout
- Dave Allen at Large
- Topics
- Elsewhere
- Wikipedia
Also on screen
- One Fine Day
A clip to start with
Dave Allen - "Teaching Your Kid Time" - '93 - stereo HQ