64:, most notably the Albany Deptford and the Half Moon Mile End, members were encouraged to open regular club nights under the name Alternative Cabaret in pub function rooms, student union bars and community venues around London. The flagship Alt Cab night was run by Allen and Sayle in the back bar of the
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Meanwhile in 1981 Allen returned to the
Edinburgh festival with Andy De La Tour, Jim Barclay and Pauline Melville and Alternative Cabaret at the Assembly Rooms was a noted hit. Highlights of the ensuing national tour were released as an album ‘Alternative Cabaret’ on Original Records later that year.
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Shortly before he parted company with
Alternative Cabaret, Alexei Sayle joined Tony Allen to play the Edinburgh festival in Aug 1980 with Late Night Alternative at the Heriot-Watt Theatre. From October 1980 he fronted the first season of alternative cabaret titled
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became parlance and was employed to describe an emerging approach to comedy entertainment across the London fringe including The Comedy Store where audiences and performers were still often being polarised into opposing
Alternative and Traditional camps.
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Sayle would record a single as a double A side recorded live at The Comedy Store along with
Alexander Arundel, whose band Flak released the song When The Gold Runs Dry with Alexei on 4 Play Records.
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The non-racist, non-sexist, and often radical slant to the material of
Alternative Cabaret’s comedians soon became the main attraction and the focus of press interest; as a consequence the phrase
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in
Ladbroke Grove, between 16 August 1979 and 22 May 1980. While always an adamant non-member Keith Allen was a regular guest at many Alt Cab club nights. Among other regular guests were
26:, as 'a sort of collective of comedians, musicians – dope smokers, dole scroungers, tax evaders, sexual deviants, political extremists'. It was set up by Allen and
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Having served its purpose, Alternative
Cabaret then quietly disbanded and merged into what was becoming the thriving London Alternative Comedy circuit.
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Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-law?: The Story of
Alternative Comedy in Britain from The Comedy Store to Saturday Live
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Double, Oliver, Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the
Reinvention of British Stand-Up, Methuen Drama, 2020, p.132
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Double, Oliver, Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the
Reinvention of British Stand-Up, Methuen Drama, 2020, p.48
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band Combo Passe. Alternative Cabaret performed their first show at the Pindar of Wakefield pub (now the
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was a group of politically motivated performers, jokingly described by one of its founder members,
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in the summer of 1979 shortly after they had met at the newly opened London
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English comedy collective of politically motivated performers and musicians
299:. RCA Original Records Ltd -(p)&(c)1981 Original Records Ltd.
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275:Over21, page 36, republished at Shapersofthe80s
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60:Echoing what was already happening in a few
271:"Something Funny is Happening in Stripland"
227:Rosengard, Peter; Wilmut, Roger (1989).
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202:Double, Oliver; Double, Oliver (2005).
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168:The Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy
164:Calcott, Andrew; Hall, Julian (2006).
233:. UK: Methuen Drama. pp. 57–58.
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92:at the Boulevard Theatre within the
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332:1981 disestablishments in England
327:1979 establishments in England
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269:Johnson, David (1981-01-01).
121:Saturday Live (UK TV series)
258:. Sunday Independent Aug 3.
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126:The Comedy Store (London)
295:Martin, Bergman (1981).
99:The Comic Strip Presents
254:Sayle, Alexi (2003).
172:. Penguin Books Ltd.
297:Alternative Cabaret
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322:Comedy collectives
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256:My Favourite Year
240:978-0-413-17390-4
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36:Jim Barclay
311:Categories
281:2018-04-07
142:References
52:Water Rats
24:Tony Allen
277:. London
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66:Elgin
48:salsa
235:ISBN
208:ISBN
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