Growing up I really admired Alexei Sayle but I was slightly terrified at the same time. What strikes me now watching this was what a kind man he is too. Such a generous warm spirit.
Notice the background music? Notice the clever graphics that kept cropping up? Notice jumpshots to keep our interest? No, neither did I. You don't need all that stuff if you've got something worth viewing. Just turn the camera on, and let these great people talk. Such a pleasure.
How have I gone through these past 6yrs unaware of this video of two of my personal heroes chatting together? This has made my day so thanks to that mysterious entity that lives within the RUclipss, Al-Gore-Rythm 👍
I had a long chat with Alexei at the Mill Theatre in Banbury, as a punter and someone he'd never come across before. He was just as relaxed, funny and opened up as that. You couldn't help but warm to him. He did have a spell of living near Banbury and remembered the frequent pub brawls of that era.
Nice one, Stewart. Alexei Sayle, The King of Comedy - consistently underrated. His two books: Stalin Ate My Homework & Thatcher Stole My Trousers are superb. RIP Molly: "It's all a pack of lies!" Fantastic.
THE King of Comedy? Really? He isn't even the King of Pseudo-Lefty English Stand-up Comedian Jews Who Got Famous Moaning About Margaret Thatcher. (Ben Elton's terrible routines were slightly better than his, while still being massively shite.)
I remember when the first cappuccino machine arrived in our town. It was like something from Jules Verne, steaming and spluttering and shaking the foundations of the café. Eventually this mug of froth arrive, which all us peasants would stand around and stare at in slack-jawed amazement.
@Mickey Finn Putting the POW camps in Scotland worked out nicely for the local cuisine, aye? I've had some of the best (proper) Italian pizzas in Scotland!
@Mickey Finn Yeah man, and all the vinegar shops! I used to go into them as a child, and sample all the vinegar with the free bread offered at the end of the isle. Oh man I miss Scotland.
I’ve experienced Lee’s Brechtian alienation in person. He came out and said something like ‘I have material that I’m trying out for a show, it’s going to be x amount of time’. I remember it compressing the experience and thinking Hang on a minute, I’ve paid this man to use me a a guinea pig. I cried laughing for the entire show
Good ol' Walid Jumblatt. Keith Allen _was_ in an episode of The Young Ones, I'm pretty sure, as one of the Four Horsemen in 'Interesting'. Travel Scrabble, anyone?
"Excuse me, are you.... Walid Jumblatt....?" Watching Rocky with the leader of the Druze militia at the Odeon Leicester Sq. in the late 70s! That is such an Alexei Sayle moment! Priceless! Alexei, such a genius. Love the man. Grew up watching the Young Ones, "Stuff" and the Alexei Sayle Show as well as his stand ups. Nothing like 'em. There's still nothing 'em.
They are certainly the best at being british comedians. I don't seem to recall a lot of world tours from Lee, I don't know anything about Sayle, being an american.
These comedians have been favourites of mine. Alexis Sayles first book Stalin stole my homework is one of my favourite audiobooks. Stuart Lee is pure 🦵 🔚
12:48 "I'm lookin' at you, Ben Elton." Classic. So I got curious about whatever happened to Elton and read this wiki entry: "Ben Elton is a British businessman and fund-raiser for the Conservative Party who has served as Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party..." and then realised I'd selected Ben ELLIOT. But really though, what's the difference?
I'm from NZ and I lived in London in1978 & 1979 and I loved it. I would never go back now in 2024 as I might get jailed for saying something somebody else does not want said! I don 't know how Alexei copes in the police state. He was my favourite British comedian. I saw him live in Sydney in the late 80's. My favourite American comedian was Norm McDonald. If he was still alive they definitely would have jailed him if they could have got their hands on him!
Wow I haven't heard the name "Walid Jumblatt" since I was a kid in the 70's. At the time I only knew the name because it was my next-door neighbour's euphemism for boobs.
My eldest daughter had a teddy bear called Walid Jumblatt! That's a great story. I fought with the PLO in Lebanon during this period, along with other wooly-backs.
So this morning I decided to watch a BBC iPlayer a documentary on the delightful Assad family. Being a millennial tosser I was also scrolling on RUclips and simultaneously, Walid Jumblatt appeared on the telly screen whilst Sly Stone talking about Carl Weathers' audition for Rocky appeared on the phone screen. I also have let myself go
I was going to make a stupid comment about Walid Jumblatt, but reading his Wikipedia page yielded this gem: "In 2018, his son Taymour W. Jumblatt replaced him (Walid Jumblatt) as a candidate for parliamentary elections."
These are very interesting guys and have some spot on stuff to say. Lee is right about the Young Ones. They are right about a lot of things. I wouldn't trust them with power though (maybe Alexi would be ok). I lost my faith in anarchists a long time ago. But on the sidelines as critics of how we do the world, they have their good moments. Keep the dream alive. Maybe one day we will figure out how to make it work. But you just can't trust people not to make things even worse. That's the way it looks to me anyway.
His comedy character, Bobby Chariot, the failing warm up comedian, is probably my favourite comedy character of all time... tragic and hilarious at the same time.
Alexi's memory of the Lebanese person evoked my memory of a Punch cartoon set in a Lebanese Druz street in the 80's after NATO got involved. A Druz sniper had just shot an old lady crossing the street and he looks at his friend and says "I wish the NATO troops would all go home, so we can kill each other in peace.
Well five years later thats stood the test of time. Alexei has stayed true to his roots unlike another Leftie comedian that I once knew who suggested he might invite me to the Groucho club. Always considered myself to be a Leftie but definitely not now with the march of Woke on the move. Do I really need to listen to comedians who went to Oxford Living now in big flash house's telling me why life is so tough for many today because I had white privilege. Yeah right ! cannot remember having that on my council estate..
'Always considered myself to be a Leftie but definitely not now with the march of Woke on the move.' - I certainly wouldn't call work 'left'. It's self-righteous liberalism that finds capitalism quite acceptable.
Did people make instant judgements about you based on the colour of your skin? No? There’s your white privilege for you. It’s not about who had a nice house and an x box
"..leftie"...you never were mate...who the phuck refers to themselves as "a leftie" or says "woke"??...also the "council estate" where you lived???...bullshit...
I genuinely thought Alexis was a European performer cos he was so outside of what I understood .when he was on the young ones I was too young and i used to think " what the fuck is this " ...it was only when I got older that I got it .
I should have liked this interview but I found it annoyingly dismissive of so much that had gone before. Alexis had zero influence over Billy Connolly the best stand up who has ever lived. Jasper Carrot was ahead of most yet seems to be dismissed in this. Funny folk singer is a shocking way to describe these geniuses.
Great interview. I did love Alexi's stuff when I was a kid growing up but seriously, the arrogance of the guy to be so cock sure that the whole scene would have flopped without him. He didn't even seem to entertain the notion that something better could have emerged in the space created by his absence. I guess you have to have ego to really succeed in comedy.
Alexei is really cool but I don't agree when he says you can be abusing yourself with drugs as a musician but not as a comedian. That's plain ignorant.
Although Alexei Sayle's shouty comedy persona was by definition rather unpleasant, he could be funny. However, when he asserted that before alternative comedy came along, British comedy was primarily mother-in-law jokes, he committed the sin of disrespecting the great range of comedy that preceded it.
I commisserate with two gents reminiscing about a time when we were given stuff for free, I enjoyed it too but the world noticed and they wanted some as well. The reason bc Alexi wouldnt get a council flat now is because he is a white english male and doesnt get many “points” in fact that category has the fewest points possible. In Alexi’s day it was your right as a poor englishman.
I'm not much older. I agree it's depressing to think how much harder things are now in some respects. But another thought occurs to me - and this may be useless to you - but I'm personally just getting into filmmaking, having done stuff in theatre for years. I just did a short course about making films on a shoestring and one thing that kept coming up was how much cheaper everything is now, specifically in shooting and editing. You couldn't make a feature for less than £100k not so long ago, because you had to spend that much just on film to go in the cameras. Now you just need an external hard drive. Then there's RUclips and Vimeo and everything else. So not everything is worse, and artists in the eighties would be deeply envious of the technology we have now, and what it enables you to create and distribute. So the optimistic approach surely has to be to make the most of what's available, and to align your creative endeavours with what's newly possible.
Growing up I really admired Alexei Sayle but I was slightly terrified at the same time.
What strikes me now watching this was what a kind man he is too. Such a generous warm spirit.
He's a very nice guy. Years ago I met him cycling through London. Charming and gracious.
Went to see him just before lockdown...was worried he might just be shouty...but was hilarious
These 2 brilliant comedians , both get better as they get older.
Not to take anything away from Alexei (who I grew up watching), but Stewart Lee is an amazing interviewer. I wish he would do more.
Agreed, a great interviewer, and a great interviewee with interesting subject matter.
he actually researches and then has an intelligent conversation
he’s not really interviewing though is he, he’s doing most of the talking. i enjoyed the conversation but it’s almost more about him than alexei.
What a lovely interview! If I had to be the centre of a human centipede, it might be this one
There is something comforting about Stewart Lee.
Particularly when The Comedian Stewart Lee is wishing that Richard Hammond had been decapitated.
@@jimskea224 Not sure, but I think he was joking.
@Beeblebrox One You could save yourself valuable time by not going to see people you don't enjoy seeing.
@@johnsterizer What, like on Top Gear?
He's really learned to let himself go
Notice the background music? Notice the clever graphics that kept cropping up? Notice jumpshots to keep our interest?
No, neither did I.
You don't need all that stuff if you've got something worth viewing. Just turn the camera on, and let these great people talk. Such a pleasure.
How have I gone through these past 6yrs unaware of this video of two of my personal heroes chatting together? This has made my day so thanks to that mysterious entity that lives within the RUclipss, Al-Gore-Rythm 👍
Exactly this, only another two years on!!😂
Two of my favourite comedians
I'm confused. Im a lifelong Tory. These are two of my very favourite performers.
Saw Lee recently.
I would love to hear another interview with them all these years later about the further changes in society AND comedy…
I had a long chat with Alexei at the Mill Theatre in Banbury, as a punter and someone he'd never come across before. He was just as relaxed, funny and opened up as that. You couldn't help but warm to him. He did have a spell of living near Banbury and remembered the frequent pub brawls of that era.
As a Glaswegian, the pub brawls in Banbury sound absolutely terrifying. So glad I wasn't there.
what an absolutely absorbing conversation
Nice one, Stewart. Alexei Sayle, The King of Comedy - consistently underrated. His two books: Stalin Ate My Homework & Thatcher Stole My Trousers are superb. RIP Molly: "It's all a pack of lies!" Fantastic.
THE King of Comedy? Really? He isn't even the King of Pseudo-Lefty English Stand-up Comedian Jews Who Got Famous Moaning About Margaret Thatcher.
(Ben Elton's terrible routines were slightly better than his, while still being massively shite.)
Came looking for the standard "underrated" comment as found on all film, music, art videos and thankfully you had posted it.
@@stephendaedalus6192 stephen deadarse
@@stephendaedalus6192 oh no - they didn’t make your day. Hope you are ok.
I remember when the first cappuccino machine arrived in our town. It was like something from Jules Verne, steaming and spluttering and shaking the foundations of the café. Eventually this mug of froth arrive, which all us peasants would stand around and stare at in slack-jawed amazement.
6 months can fly by...
What year was that
@@aprilapril2 This was last week.
@Mickey Finn Putting the POW camps in Scotland worked out nicely for the local cuisine, aye? I've had some of the best (proper) Italian pizzas in Scotland!
@Mickey Finn Yeah man, and all the vinegar shops! I used to go into them as a child, and sample all the vinegar with the free bread offered at the end of the isle. Oh man I miss Scotland.
I could watch these two in conversation all day. The Rocky story was hilarious.
It was alright
"you're always saying that' , 😂🤦🏻♂️ .. x
I love how these two make each other laugh, it's a rare thing for either of them!
70s, I remember going for a weekend in Wales and the pubs were shut on Sunday, all day, we didn't know what to do.
If the rumors of Wales I've heard are true, you do what we did in the southern US: sex and explosives! Oh, and horror films/bands...
Thank you both very much for this.... really liked it....
I’ve experienced Lee’s Brechtian alienation in person. He came out and said something like ‘I have material that I’m trying out for a show, it’s going to be x amount of time’. I remember it compressing the experience and thinking Hang on a minute, I’ve paid this man to use me a a guinea pig. I cried laughing for the entire show
They do say timeing is the secrect of comedy.
That was my experience, too. Bastard. 😂
@@zellah😂😂😂
Alexie looks better now in 2022 then he did then. Really enjoying his cycling tours.
Yeah but Stuart has clearly been at the cheese.
@@andrewjackson8089 Stewart Lee has really let the cheese go.
@@alan2007-x8x all the cheeses…….
Good ol' Walid Jumblatt.
Keith Allen _was_ in an episode of The Young Ones, I'm pretty sure, as one of the Four Horsemen in 'Interesting'.
Travel Scrabble, anyone?
Two of my all time favourites.🙏
Brilliant post. Thanks chum.
I remember going to a b n b in Inverness in the80s first question if you're an English tory u can f off...i loved the Scottish after that.
I've never heard Stewart Lee laugh so hard in an interview.
This is brilliant. Anyone who has an interest in comedy and what it is to be a comic really should ewatch this. Very funny too, ofg course.
Brilliant 👍
"Excuse me, are you.... Walid Jumblatt....?" Watching Rocky with the leader of the Druze militia at the Odeon Leicester Sq. in the late 70s! That is such an Alexei Sayle moment! Priceless! Alexei, such a genius. Love the man. Grew up watching the Young Ones, "Stuff" and the Alexei Sayle Show as well as his stand ups. Nothing like 'em. There's still nothing 'em.
Loved watching this, Alexi shows again how British comedians are the best along with the likes of Stewart Lee.
Alexi's a comedian?
They are certainly the best at being british comedians. I don't seem to recall a lot of world tours from Lee, I don't know anything about Sayle, being an american.
@@stizuart
Americans don't have the intellect to understand them or there cultural background, communism is a dirty word in America.
So glad you mentioned John Dowie, he was great.
Just had to pull over in the car as I was in hysterics. Great interview
I loved Alexei’s Stuff series when I was about ten. I used to learn it in his accent and quote it to a confused family.
'ere's my calling card... WALLOP! 'ere's my calling card... WALLOP!
Dat's for dee invasion of Creeete
@@9C85-g4b😂😂😂
Wonderful
These comedians have been favourites of mine. Alexis Sayles first book Stalin stole my homework is one of my favourite audiobooks. Stuart Lee is pure 🦵 🔚
"Never mind the Bulkans" Lol ffs this interview is so great
12:48 "I'm lookin' at you, Ben Elton." Classic.
So I got curious about whatever happened to Elton and read this wiki entry:
"Ben Elton is a British businessman and fund-raiser for the Conservative Party who has served as Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party..." and then realised I'd selected Ben ELLIOT. But really though, what's the difference?
Love this
Great stuff
Two of my favourite ever comedians! Is it just me, or does anyone else see George Gently whenever they see Stewart Lee?
I love the way Alexi just casually says as a throw away side point "no one's a comic who is not propelled by tremendous ego"
Two very classy people being very classy. Very interesting, thoughtful, and would have been on terrestrial TV back in the day.
I wonder if 19 year old Stewart Lee had any inkling that he would be pals with Alexei Sayle when he was 49. That must be amazing.
Great interview,not convinced about the comedians cant be high bit , Richard Pryor made it work ..among others.
Alexi is one of the true pioneers
Growing a wilted ego , love and do what you want.
13:52 - Stew is talking about Ricky Gervais.
Thanks - I was wondering who he meant.
Sebastian Hill ... But I don’t think he’s ever played to as little as 500 people, he started off the back of the Office and went straight to stadiums
@@dmoney9285 He is talking about Ricky Gervais. It’s in one of Stewart lees books.
I'm from NZ and I lived in London in1978 & 1979 and I loved it. I would never go back now in 2024 as I might get jailed for saying something somebody else does not want said! I don 't know how Alexei copes in the police state. He was my favourite British comedian. I saw him live in Sydney in the late 80's. My favourite American comedian was Norm McDonald. If he was still alive they definitely would have jailed him if they could have got their hands on him!
Which comic is Lee talking about at 14:00 ?
Hello Stewart got a new motor?
Not a huge fan of either but this is just a really good and interesting interview and great to see this side of both. Great stuff.
This book is fvcking brilliant!!! I laughed so hard, the Walid Jumblatt Druze Malitia story nearly took my life..........
It was alright.
Stuart Scott,
Yes. I totally agree with you. Superbly written.
Half way through and just realised Lee is the interviewer and now interviewee.
Now we know where Stewart gets his suits from.
Wow I haven't heard the name "Walid Jumblatt" since I was a kid in the 70's. At the time I only knew the name because it was my next-door neighbour's euphemism for boobs.
It's now my euphemism for boobs
My eldest daughter had a teddy bear called Walid Jumblatt! That's a great story. I fought with the PLO in Lebanon during this period, along with other wooly-backs.
19:14 hilarious!!
stewart lee is so cute
Stew knows there’s not enough ants in this autobiography
13:23 It burns!! IT BURRRNNNSSS!!!!
Alexei Sayle is the polar opposite of his stage persona: gentle and funny.
12:42... ouch! Can't tell if Sayle is serious or not there....
I thought he was going to say … starting with your stand up … and the birth of (pause) your baby 😂
21:18 - "Small world." - lmfao.
i love alexei but he’s convinced alternative comedy in england wouldn’t exist without himself
So this morning I decided to watch a BBC iPlayer a documentary on the delightful Assad family. Being a millennial tosser I was also scrolling on RUclips and simultaneously, Walid Jumblatt appeared on the telly screen whilst Sly Stone talking about Carl Weathers' audition for Rocky appeared on the phone screen.
I also have let myself go
I was going to make a stupid comment about Walid Jumblatt, but reading his Wikipedia page yielded this gem:
"In 2018, his son Taymour W. Jumblatt replaced him (Walid Jumblatt) as a candidate for parliamentary elections."
And his Dad was the former president. Lefties are hereditary to
@@johncarlisle2755 A plague on both their houses...
That book needs to be gave to everyone
Would you be able to read it properly?
Adore the "fat bastard"!❤️
What an interview
Best Alexi Sayle quote critiquing 80s middle class Stalinist apologists, "you can't make an omelette without killing 60 million peasant farmers".
These are very interesting guys and have some spot on stuff to say. Lee is right about the Young Ones. They are right about a lot of things. I wouldn't trust them with power though (maybe Alexi would be ok). I lost my faith in anarchists a long time ago. But on the sidelines as critics of how we do the world, they have their good moments. Keep the dream alive. Maybe one day we will figure out how to make it work. But you just can't trust people not to make things even worse.
That's the way it looks to me anyway.
My two favourite comedians, okay Vic and Bob as well but these two and Vic and Bob.
'What did you think of the film then?'
"It was alright.' :')
The two men meet...Mussolini and Ratko Mladic. Both have let themselves go a bit.
😂
Bring back Bobby Chariot
"...sleepin in me Jag"
@@ImeanFFS I’m on pills for me nerrrves.
The Young Ones,,,,used to hate it when Alexei came on!
His comedy character, Bobby Chariot, the failing warm up comedian, is probably my favourite comedy character of all time... tragic and hilarious at the same time.
Well there you go! The fruits of vanguard of proletariat was for Alexi to keep 'tropical fish in his underpants'.
You know what you want stu , the moon on a stick.
Alexi's memory of the Lebanese person evoked my memory of a Punch cartoon set in a Lebanese Druz street in the 80's after NATO got involved. A Druz sniper had just shot an old lady crossing the street and he looks at his friend and says "I wish the NATO troops would all go home, so we can kill each other in peace.
John Dowie. A sort of Brummy Ivor Cutler.
Well five years later thats stood the test of time. Alexei has stayed true to his roots unlike another Leftie comedian that I once knew who suggested he might invite me to the Groucho club. Always considered myself to be a Leftie but definitely not now with the march of Woke on the move. Do I really need to listen to comedians who went to Oxford Living now in big flash house's telling me why life is so tough for many today because I had white privilege. Yeah right ! cannot remember having that on my council estate..
'Always considered myself to be a Leftie but definitely not now with the march of Woke on the move.' - I certainly wouldn't call work 'left'. It's self-righteous liberalism that finds capitalism quite acceptable.
Did people make instant judgements about you based on the colour of your skin? No? There’s your white privilege for you. It’s not about who had a nice house and an x box
"..leftie"...you never were mate...who the phuck refers to themselves as "a leftie" or says "woke"??...also the "council estate" where you lived???...bullshit...
You do you mate ❤
I genuinely thought Alexis was a European performer cos he was so outside of what I understood .when he was on the young ones I was too young and i used to think " what the fuck is this " ...it was only when I got older that I got it .
Lenin has let himself go.
No mention of Billy Connelly, apart from that OK.
I should have liked this interview but I found it annoyingly dismissive of so much that had gone before. Alexis had zero influence over Billy Connolly the best stand up who has ever lived. Jasper Carrot was ahead of most yet seems to be dismissed in this. Funny folk singer is a shocking way to describe these geniuses.
Great interview. I did love Alexi's stuff when I was a kid growing up but seriously, the arrogance of the guy to be so cock sure that the whole scene would have flopped without him. He didn't even seem to entertain the notion that something better could have emerged in the space created by his absence. I guess you have to have ego to really succeed in comedy.
He's right about Dominic Sandbrook . Who's good at rewriting the history of the 1980s .
Alexei is really cool but I don't agree when he says you can be abusing yourself with drugs as a musician but not as a comedian. That's plain ignorant.
You can see why he ditched Richard Herring.
Christ Mel & Sue have let themselves go!
Although Alexei Sayle's shouty comedy persona was by definition rather unpleasant, he could be funny. However, when he asserted that before alternative comedy came along, British comedy was primarily mother-in-law jokes, he committed the sin of disrespecting the great range of comedy that preceded it.
Yeah … the carry on films
WHAT AN INSIGHT..I GREW UP WITH THE YOUNG ONES AND COMICE STRIP...LEGENDS LADS..BRILLIANT THAT MR SAYLE AND MR LEE XXX
I commisserate with two gents reminiscing about a time when we were given stuff for free, I enjoyed it too but the world noticed and they wanted some as well. The reason bc Alexi wouldnt get a council flat now is because he is a white english male and doesnt get many “points” in fact that category has the fewest points possible. In Alexi’s day it was your right as a poor englishman.
Strange thing say. Might as well be dead as he never made it.
Hmm. The insight into the man of a far left mind
Shrek has really let himself go.
".......and you owe me, 500 quid"...
john dowie was funny. i looked him up. should have been more famous.
Stew is doing commercials now? Alexei must have some serious dirt on him.
28, struggling artist - this is fucking depressing
I'm not much older. I agree it's depressing to think how much harder things are now in some respects. But another thought occurs to me - and this may be useless to you - but I'm personally just getting into filmmaking, having done stuff in theatre for years. I just did a short course about making films on a shoestring and one thing that kept coming up was how much cheaper everything is now, specifically in shooting and editing. You couldn't make a feature for less than £100k not so long ago, because you had to spend that much just on film to go in the cameras. Now you just need an external hard drive. Then there's RUclips and Vimeo and everything else. So not everything is worse, and artists in the eighties would be deeply envious of the technology we have now, and what it enables you to create and distribute. So the optimistic approach surely has to be to make the most of what's available, and to align your creative endeavours with what's newly possible.
wise men
I keep tropical fish, I keep tropical fish, in me underpants.