A Fistful of bulls**t? (An Autobiography: Grow Up - Keith Allen)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	An Autobiography: Grow Up - Keith Allen
Date:	10/06/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written

Disadvantages: Not a lot of celeb stuff

"I hooked up with this chic (who is now a dame) in Soho in the summer of 74. An hour later I was in her bedroom snorting animal nitrate; her with her head phones on listening to opera, and me with my tongue about two inches up her magnificent bottom (no it wasn't Judy Dench)"

Kith Allen (2008)

Its hard to know what to make of Keith Allen, other than he has a bit of a reputation and has a cracking writing style, this the best written life memoir I have read since Rupert Everett's excellent account of his similarly naughty and deviant lifestyle, although Everett's book was far more entertaining. But is Keith the bad boy he makes out or is yet another pseudo working-class tosser playing a role to get work and publicity? Dedicating the book to Joe Strummer, a guy he claims to have met just twice, has that whiff about it. But I didn't get this out from the library to learn about Allen's life so much but to see how many big names he slag's off and what delinquent showbiz secrets he`s prepared to reveal, of which there are a few, the opening quoted paragraph surely Helen Mirren.

The better biographies are the honest ones, and this is certainly that, but the content is not the showbiz expose I was expecting and so not the most probing and revelatory book. In fact over half the 350 pages have gone before he hits manhood, Keith very keen to tell you about his adolescent years in great detail for some reason. It was a similar tale with Stephen Fry's autobiography, these books therapy as much as sharing, two guys who need the shrinks couch.

Keith's early days were that of an old fashioned blue-collar boy, his dad in the merchant Navy and so the family moving around a lot like the tides, his mum firmly chained to the sink (when they had one) like mums were back then. With relatives taking them in when dad wasn't in port his life was truncated and so eventually he ended up in borstal for all his teenage misdemeanours. His first job in a printing factory didn't agree with him and university was never in the equation.

In his teens he scarpered to the bright lights of London and lived in squats and on friend's floors as the punk revolution took hold in the 1970s, big hair rock blown away with a wall of noise from the Sex Pistols. As the 80s evolved Keith started to be in and around the media and making the right friends to get his first acting jobs, his enfant terribe act garnering him the reputation and so a fabled place in the London 'scene'.

Keith's spell as a pirate radio station host (on MW no less) and various cameo stand-up gigs and TV voxpox would bleed his name into the youths conscious. His spoof gay Rasta, 'Sex Boots Dred', that would sing about the joys of gay sex over the airwaves and at gigs would certainly light up the phones on his South London switchboard. He even released a record in the 80s that sold 2000 copies; 'Max Bygraves killed my Mother', a cult collector's item claims Keith.

It is here in the book he boasts heavily about his promiscuity and the resulting illegitimate kids. His most famous daughter is Lilly, of course, she as equally naughty and opinionated as dad in the book, and in real life, apparently. Harry Enfield, of all people, would briefly be her dad when Kiva Allen left Keith for the portly comic. It was also the time of the new wave of alternative comedians, the Comedy Store where they were being bred and then unleashed on the world to cause mayhem, comedy anarchist like Allen in his element.

But it was the nineties that would bring Allen's name to the mainstream, C4 and the excellent Comic Strip films great exposure. And it would be Keith's and the families love of Glastonbury that would make Lilly the naughty girl she is and where she got those likewise lyrics from, dad anything but discouraging that behaviour over the years from his beautiful daughter, lending yet more cred to the fact the guy may well be the real deal.

He does begin to name drop in the book about half way, Alex James from Blur and modern art guru Damien Hurst his biggest mates on the scene. He tells a great story where some well to do art types meet the trio at a party and started boasting that they bought one of Damien's paintings. Damien asks which one and how much he paid for it. The guy replies 'Swirly hoops at Dawn'...some 27 grand I think', which Hurst chuckles back and says it was painted by his and Alex James kids (who are 4 and 5 respectively). The guys face turned white, and not only that, it was indeed the case the kids had painted it, exposing yet again the absurdity of modern art and the suckers willing to buy into the illusion. But the very act of Keith Allen having friends like these suggest he doesn't hate all pseudo working-class tossers, beginning to become part of the establishment in the 1990s he so enjoys despising throughout most of the book. We both hate David Badiel, of course! In fact he ends the book pushing that very point on why he didn't slag of more people in it, of which he confirms that "AA Gill is indeed a c..."

Any good?

One thing you do learn from this book is Keith Allen is the guy he appears to be, probably why he's not really that famous because he never wanted to be, perhaps why he is most famous for that awful Vindaloo song. His Robin Hood adventures have softened his bad boy image in his 50s and just as insecure as the rest of us. He's no Oliver Reed. Yes he's snorted a lot of Class A at the 'Ivy' with people you would never believe but that's what show biz people do to keep working.


The book is chaptered by decades and then sub chaptered and very easy to read, Allen not using big words to alienate readers to prove he's really clever or something. The book is very good that way and has zero pretensions. The guy is the guy you think he is and he wants to be portrayed as and for that reason it's not a bad autobiography.

Summary: A genunie autobiography...