|
|
 |
| |
Alexei has a kinda change of heart
Mister Roberts
Alexei Sayle
Sceptre
BEFORE Alexei Sayle was an author, film actor and columnist, he was a stand-up comic. Today, as his fifth book, Mister Roberts, is released, Sayle prefers the term “comedy survivor”.
Although he hasn't done stand-up for 12 years, the dour, lightly anarchic schtick of yesteryear still inflects his work: set in Spain and London, Mister Roberts is a fantastical man-who-falls-to-earth morality tale recounted with trademark cynicism. British ex-pats, whom Sayle frequently encounters when staying at his house in southern Spain (he spends about two months a year there), come in for particular drubbing; dear old Blighty fares little better.
“I’ve had the idea a long time, probably since before I was an author. It’s been set on housing estates in the North – all around the world. There’s an atmosphere of magic in Southern Spain but with British people from Hull or wherever in the mix,” he says.
“You’ve got religion but also a kind of demented attitude to pleasure, the history, the Islamic influences. The Last Moor’s grave is behind the supermarket in our village.”
The 56-year-old Liverpudlian and ex-communist shares a degree of his protagonist Lawrence’s “ambiguous relationship” with England, fuelled by long walks around the city from his Bloomsbury home after a morning of writing.
A former Young One, Sayle admits he feels a “kinship” with the comedy circuit he has not found in the writing world, and his stand-up candour still pokes through. Off-hand, he describes Blair’s cabinet as “mentally ill” and dismisses George Bush as a “dry drunk”; then declares he can’t ever remember writing anything: “There’s no rhyme nor reason to my habits. I honestly don’t know how I get any work done. My memories of having lunch are much more vivid. It’s 9/11, we had sausages for tea, that’s what my diaries are like.”
Sayle’s books – which are first read by his wife and “personal trainer” of 30 years Linda Rawsthorn – are concerned with “moral responsibility, the dangers of change and the randomness of the universe”. He is still trying to explain how he feels about the world, but Mister Roberts is a departure in some respects.
“Up to now I’ve always used violence and catastrophe to shock, but this one is a much nicer, kinder book. I’ve taken a risk in being more commercial,” he jokes. “Often people use things like religion or politics to evade their human responsiblities. The message of Mister Roberts is to not preach heaven on earth, but just be kind to those around you.”
Is this a change of heart for Sayle? Has he gone soft in his old age?
“I’m much less judgmental,” he says, then thinks about it. “Well, I’d still slag somebody off, but now I’d be more aware of their humanity. I’d appreciate their suffering more.”
SIMON WROE
•
|
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
