Sayle or Return

Rip It Up, Issue 122, 1 September 1987, Page 4

Sayle or Return

He doesn’t do adverts back ■ home in Britain. It brings too much : baggage with it. Here, it doesn’t seem to matter. He doesn’t know why. It seemed like a good idea: Rarotonga, Singapore on the way back, it’s like a paid holiday. It’s a shitty summer in Britain. r /.. , He’s been doing films lately. One of them, Solarwarriors, is on at the cinema up the road, the only place in the world, it seems. It's certainly never surfaced in Britain. It’s what you might call a failure. So that's probably that. He's done some films that have never-appeared. Marlon Brando probably has too. He hasn’t done standup comedy for a couple of years. It’s hard work, making strangers laugh. Trying to push it as far as possible, and not make it cosy. A . JB Priestley play would be easier. Nobody’s gonna heckle you, everyone’s gonna be sober, nobody's gonna be offended and walk out. It’s not gonna be full of .1. punks and skinheads. All his live concerts were like that. Also it's limited artistically: there's only so far you can go when you’ve gotta get a laugh every 30 seconds. If you don’t, you're not being a comic.

Films are what he’s most interested in now: acting and wnti ng. Didn't You Kill My Brother? opens in Britain soon. But films don’t take up that much time — writing does. For Time Out, the Sunday Mirror. He likes doing what’s not expected of him, to make the most stupid career moves he can. That makes it more interesting, you get a good progression: a wild anarchic comedian who gets successful,

Even a cup of strong espresso can’t turn Alexei ~ Sayle into a anarchic comedian this morning. J Tanned from two weeks holiday in Rarotonga, he seems bored. He sits Buddha-like in shapeless T-shirt and trousers, his face blank as the Regent’s decor. Maybe it’s the interview conveyor belt. Maybe he’s thinking of the impending film shoot, with its 120 setups. What’s he in Auckland for? An advert. What’s he advertising? Oh, we’ll find out in the spring.

does some charity concerts for Princess Diana, plays polo with Billy Connolly, dies of a drug overdose... That’s the sort of career plan he’s been trying to avoid. All he’s managed to do is die of a drugs overdose. The humour of his early work was that of his Liverpool friends, really. Did he fit in? Yeah. No, perhaps not. His parents were both in the Communist Party and all that, blah blah. They felt slightly su perci I lious to the rest of the

neighbourhood, working class, comfortable, he more or less fitted in. No deep trauma. Over the years his standup work and writing have become q more political. His films, $ underneath, in a diffuse sense, : 5 deep down, look at how things • O could be different economically in Britain. No, he’s not a supporter Oj of the Labour Party. If he’d o z. wanted a bald Harold Wilson, yes, he’d have voted for Neil Kinnock. Thatcher makes Kinnock look like O a radical because she’s so £ right-wing. J At least she forces people to make choices: she’s an evil ~ woman. In a general sense, F :'L being a left-winger is an ‘ articulation of what is decent about people, while being right-wing is an expression of all : ; ‘ that’s evil in people: racism and ~'.v . greed and so on. Nevertheless ' having Thatcher in power makes ’ ' the country a vital kind of place, b.. which may sound stupid, : 7‘'..:• ... . because a lot of people are . J suffering terribly. Butthose people would have still suffered under Kinnock. . J.. . •’ -Z "'Ambitions? What now, after TV, i _ films, records and two novels?Well, he doesn't know. He’d like a • ■ motorbike. Tolearn karate. A 7 ’ fitted kitchen i Naah, he’d like to retire— he’d always'said heZ - - would when he was 35. He’s 35 * - now, so maybe at 36. . - '- - - But no. He’d like to make some films like Woody Allen, one a _ year, write it, make it, do nothing else. And for them to be hailed as the most significant films of the 80s and 90s. Yeah, he’d like to be Orson Welles, with the big hat, the beard. : Orson Welles, the film genius ’ who died plugging Xerox .... -’machines. But Alexei won’t do TV 1 ads, in Britain anyway. They imply a degree of endorsement. ’ - Some photos? Certainly. Like a . surge of ECG, his blank face lights up with the flashbulb. Flash: mad look. Blank mask. Flash: mad look. Blank mask. ' " ~ - Chris Bourke • ;