Dave Allen - A Little Night Reading

[dem bones]

Another revival, only excuse is I just snagged a copy of the hardback and the cover photo isn't a patch on the groovy Everest artwork. Another bunch of hoary old chestnuts, but am dead grateful to have finally read Dave Allen's thoughts on the genre after all these years.

FranklinMarsh said:

A Little Night Reading - Compiled by Dave Allen
First published in Great Britain in 1974 by Roger Schlesinger RHS (Publications) Ltd
First Orbit edition published in 1975 by Futura Publications Limited

Introduction

The Monkey's Paw - W W Jacobs
Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad - M R James
The Signalman - Charles Dickens
The Open Window - 'Saki'
Clarimonde - Theophile Gautier
The Black Cat - Edgar Allan Poe
The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde
Nobody's House - A M Burrage
Was it a Dream? - Guy de Maupassant
The Birds - Daphne Du Maurier
The Furnished Room - O Henry
The Withered Arm - Thomas Hardy
The Man with a Malady - J F Sullivan
Tcheriapin - Sax Rohmer
The Brown Hand - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Inn of the Two Witches - Joseph Conrad
The Rose Garden - M R James
The Inexperienced Ghost - H G Wells
The Squaw - Bram Stoker

Here it is! I mean, you'd expect the likes of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, even Alfred Hitchcock to get involved in this sort of stuff, but 'Television personality and actor' Dave Allen?

'With his Irish background and lively imagination Dave Allen has always been interested in tales of suspense, and has been an avid reader of them since boyhood. He has a natural talent for recounting such stories as many who have seen him well know.'

The introduction (if you believe it, and I can't really see a reason not to) confirms the above, and, as publisher Roger Schlesinger was a friend of his, an evening of ghost story telling by a roaring fire in Dave's rambling house in Devon led to the pair of them deciding upon an antho.

I remember a few horror spoofs on Dave's show (and they were frightening as well as funny to my boyhood imagination) - his ultimate ghost story being the tale of how he lost his finger.

[Craig Herbertson]

Here it is. My favourite was the shoes on the stair in the haunted castle.

link

The funeral:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt7h3CghJEg

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

A nice little article, with links to some of Dave Allen's ghostly monologues, has appeared. Not sure who the author of the piece is, though sharing it on social media has prompted a lovely flurry of warmth, nostalgia and appreciation of Dave's impeccable storytelling skills... reprobatepress.com/2020/07/23/the-horrors-of-dave-allen/

[cromagnonman]

They used to call Bob Monkhouse the "comedian's comedian" and he was. But I'd put Allen in the same bracket. Had the privilege of seeing him on stage twice and he was just brilliant. Walked on with a glass of whiskey in his hand and started talking. And didn't stop for two hours. No notes, no cue cards, no prompts, nothing. Top top comic.

Years ago I salvaged a book from a charity shop and found this inside being used as a bookmark. Pleased me more than the book I think.

 

[Michael Connolly]

Jul 24, 2020 9:54:16 GMT The Lurker In The Shadows said:

A nice little article, with links to some of Dave Allen's ghostly monologues, has appeared. Not sure who the author of the piece is, though sharing it on social media has prompted a lovely flurry of warmth, nostalgia and appreciation of Dave's impeccable storytelling skills... reprobatepress.com/2020/07/23/the-horrors-of-dave-allen/

I had very religious relatives who tut-tutted Dave Allen but they still watched him. It's hard to believe that he died fifteen years ago.

[helrunar]

Sweet smile. Love those dimples. I've never heard of him of course...

cheers, Steve

[helrunar]

Interesting to see the stories selected in the first book in this thread. Of course there is no way of knowing if Mr Allen chose them personally, but I was intrigued to see Sax Rohmer's "Tcheriapin" (which I think was originally published in Tales of East and West), not at all a well known tale, amongst numerous old tried and true warhorses that were anthologized innumerable times over the years.

Nice selection of "The Rose Garden" by Monty James and "Nobody's House" by Burrage, too. I wonder if he recited any of these in his act.

H.

[andydecker]

I absolutly love Allen. End of the 70s a handful of his shows were broadcast in a translation on one of the sub-channels of German TV, long before the advent of private TV. It was as funny as it was cool, this guy sitting there, cigarette and whiskey (even if it was ginger ale) in hand, holding his monologues and taking the shit out of religion and other madness. I forgot him, until a few years back I stumbled upon his work on youtube. Nobody of today's comedians can hold a candle to him, this was smart, cutting, not pandering to trends.

Thanks for the blog-links. His "ghost-tales" are so well done, spoofing the genre without ridiculing it. 

[cromagnonman]

I used to love the delight and relish he took in the vagaries of language. Such as the time he was pleased to find goose on the menu in a restaurant. He called the waitress over and asked her how it was, to which she answered that she hadn't asked it.
"You misunderstand" says Allen "I meant what's it like?"
Says the waitress:
"It's like a big duck only white."

And don't get me started on his sketches.

[helrunar]

I played the horror story video. The man was a genius. He should have done some of our films. Masterful!

Apparently his shows did play over here, but I have no idea where. An American woman on that article mentions having seen him "stateside."

H.

[andydecker]

Here is another link, a whole show, Steve.


link

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

I'm still in awe of the fact that he would take seven or eight minutes of a comedy show to tell a story with no jokes (at least not till the end), and trust that he could hold his audience rapt. Which he does, with skill and with charm, and impeccable timing and utter conviction.

A great story-teller, an incredible comedian, a fine actor. A man who paid attention to his fellow humans, so was adept at finding the humour in life. His documentary on 'The Great English Eccentric' is marvellous, as he is genuinely interested and never sneering or dismissive of the folk he meets.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RX1fMWkims

[helrunar]

Thanks for this, Daniel. My pointy ears perked up when there was a mention on W-paedia about Dave's documentaries chronicling the lives of the eccentrics. As something of an eccentric myself, I am always anxious to learn more about how others have managed. Though in extreme old age I more or less concluded that I was never all that eccentric myself--I simply was into "eccentric" stuff. I had way more fun that way--no regrets.

cheers, Steve

[jamesdoig]

Dave Allen was a favourite growing up in the 70s, along with The Two Ronnies ("The Phantom Raspberry Blower") and Dad's Army (Private Frazer telling the ghost story in the lighthouse). Then along came Not the Nine O'clock News and The Young Ones.

[Michael Connolly]

That awful Dave Allen. What harm did Irish priests ever do to anyone?