Keith Allen: ‘Your implication is my life’s a failure and I’d be happier had I lost my manhood’
You’ve performed naked on stage with Max Bygraves, bared all in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and posed nude for the BBC’s Celebrity Painting Challenge. Do you enjoy getting your kit off ? VerulamiumParkRangerI should point out that in two of those instances, I was paid to do so. The Max Bygraves one, I chose to do, merely to disrupt his show. I did a whole one-man show naked at the Albany Empire called Whatever Happened to the AA Man’s Salute, so I’m not afraid to be naked. I don’t think Saltburn is up my alley, but if a part came along and I had to dance naked to a song at the end … considering the world that we live in now with Photoshopping and “enhancement”, I’d be absolutely fine with it, as long as I could have it written into my contract that there would be a small extension.
I don’t think there is a better TV villain than you, Keith. Isn’t it time you were offered your own series, assuming you’d be interested? SouffletYes. But do I have to be a villain? I think I could be the Whistling Beardy Detective, living on a barge, a six-episode series. Or a copper in a deckchair. At 70, most parts I’d like to get would be sitting down or, even better, just the whole series lying in a bed, like The Singing Detective.
You had a theory that Keith is the coolest name in the world – Keith Richards, Keith Floyd, Keith Haring, Kool Keith, Keith Flint – and it’s only Keith Chegwin who has undone the credibility. Can you expand? ClarenceBeeksI don’t remember having that theory, but at my age, there’s lots I don’t remember. I do notice that in lots of comedy shows, if there’s a character that needs to be made fun of, they often have the name Keith. I don’t know what it is about Keith – and also Kevin – that makes people assume they’re not very smart.
In Case Histories, you played Richard Moat, a comedian at the Edinburgh festival who discounts his many critics, saying he never reads reviews. How about you? WomanofWolfvilleFunnily enough, I’d forgotten I’d done that. I couldn’t even remember what it was, so I had to Google it this morning. We live in a different age because of social media, where everyone wants to be a critic, even though they’re not very good at it. I don’t go out of my way to read reviews. I do remember one by AA Gill. He just didn’t like me. I could have won an Oscar and he’d still have found fault. He used to call me Mr Potato Head, so I did get my own back in my autobiography. The very last line is: “AA Gill is a cunt.” I met him at a Chelsea game, and also funnily enough at the Hay literary festival, when we were on the same bill. He was asked: “Why did Keith Allen call you a cunt?” and he said: “I really don’t know!”
I’m told you were the architect of one of the most politically subversive moments on British television: convincing a small boy to shout “Karl Marx is God!” during a Saturday morning kids show in the early 80s. StardustLilI used to open for Dexys Midnight Runners, and they were asked to be on this Saturday morning kids TV show, I think called Fun Factory. There was a guy called Uncle Billy who would conduct a science lesson every week, and all the kids would sit around and ask questions. The lesson was about water displacement with air, like how a submarine rises and goes down. I could see these kids waiting to go on, so I picked one and said: “I’m going to be hiding over there. When I give my thumbs up, I want you to run up to Uncle Billy and say: “Karl Marx is God.” Right at the moment that Uncle Billy had his back to the kids and was pointing at his board, I gave a thumbs up, the kid ran out, tapped him on the back and said: “Karl Marx is God!” He went: “He might well be, but I don’t know, so you better go sit back down.” I spent the rest of the show running around the studio hiding while the producers were looking for the man who had corrupted this kid.
What were your final thoughts about Keith Floyd after filming your documentary? Was your admiration usurped by pity? BicuserNo, not at all. I mean, he was very, very manipulative. As his longtime producer said, at some point during the process, he realised that he was being directed, not Keith, which meant Keith would take control and steer the ship in whichever direction he wanted to. But it didn’t lessen my opinion of him as a presenter or a chef. Any update on the Diana documentary? TopTrampNone whatsoever. Moving on.
Your son Alfie’s character in Game of Thrones, Theon Greyjoy, was a foolish young upstart who became a better person after losing his manhood. Would this path to redemption have worked for you? McScootikins
What I find interesting about this question is the tense … Would it have worked for you? The implication being that my life has been a failure, whereas if I’d lost my manhood, I would have actually become a better person. I don’t really know, to be honest with you. I have an aversion to shows like Game of Thrones. Anything with dragons and people flying about, I have no interest in whatsoever. So I’ve never watched it. But my partner watched it religiously. She’d yell: “Alfie’s on,” so I’d just run in to watch Alfie, and I should say, he’s absolutely brilliant.
How impressed have you been with Lily’s acting? Is she a better actor than you? Prestonian79It’s subjective, so I leave that up to your readers. Have I ever given her any acting advice? You must be joking. I don’t think it would be of any value. I could understand it if we were in a film together and discussing work. But when you go to see one performance, you just stand around being proud. What would be my advice for any up-and-coming actors? Get a job. I think something like 86% of actors aren’t working for an inordinate amount of time. So you need something to stop you feeling depressed. Take up a bit of carpentry, being an electrician, a plumber, anything. Nowadays, you’d be an Uber driver. I was a coal miner. I used to run a mobile bar. In the early 80s, my [then] wife Alison [Owen, now a film producer] would find out where the parties were after the pubs shut, stock up on booze, then go sell it. I’ve been a butcher, a silkscreen printer … I’ve done everything.
Which is the best England football song of all time: World in Motion by New Order (which you co-wrote), Vindaloo by Fat Les (which you co-wrote and performed), Three Lions, or something else? VerulamiumParkRanger
They all have completely different lives. You’ll never hear World in Motion sung on a football terrace or in the pub, but you will hear it on the radio. It captured the zeitgeist of 1990. Three Lions – which I’ve never liked, but I do appreciate its qualities – was embraced by English fans. They still sing it. Vindaloo is never sung on the terraces, but it is sung vociferously in pubs, and on the way to matches, because weirdly, it’s a family-oriented song, so little kids like marching to it, parents love it because they watch their kids marching to it, grandparents love it because it’s easy to sing, so it embraces all aspects of society. Jimmy Greaves once said it was responsible for the riots in Marseille, which was ludicrous because I was actually in Marseille leading about 400 English fans doing a rendition of it, being conducted by the French police, and no one was fighting at all. So Vindaloo is my favourite because it’s so passionately embraced.
• La Cha Cha, written and directed by Allen’s brother Kevin and starring Keith and his son Alfie, is out now on digital platforms
nuel Carrère.
Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian director of The Hand of God and The Young Pope, returns to Cannes with Parthenope, another film set in his native Napoli, while 2015 Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard will premiere Emilia Perez, a musical set in the world of Mexican drug cartels.
The festival’s jury will be chaired by Barbie director Greta Gerwig, the first female film-maker in the role since Jane Campion in 2014.
Films already announced include George Miller’s Mad Max prequel Furiosa, Kevin Costner’s multi-episode Western Horizon: An American Saga and Coppola’s long-awaited Megalopolis. Supposedly inspired by the Roman empire, the film has been four decades in the making and was reported to have been funded with $120m of the Godfather director’s own money.
The opening film will be absurdist comedy The Second Act starring Léa Seydoux and directed by French director Quentin Dupieux, once upon a time better known under his musical alias Mr Oizo. As tradition has it, the opening film will debut in French cinemas the same day.
Star Warscreator George Lucas will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the closing ceremony on 25 May.
A spectacularly strong lineup for the festival in 2023 saw Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall claim the Palme d’Or and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest awarded the Grand Prix. The two films became juggernauts of the awards season, with Glazer’s stylised Holocaust drama winning two Oscars in March.
Cannes 2024 official selection: the full list
Competition
The Apprentice, dir: Ali Abbasi Motel Destino, dir: Karim Aïnouz Bird, dir: Andrea Arnold
Emilia Perez, dir: Jacques Audiard Anora, dir: Sean Baker
Megalopolis, dir: Francis Ford Coppola
The Shrounds, dir: David Cronenberg
The Substance, dir: Coralie Fargeat Grand Tour, dir: Miguel Gomes Marcello Mio, dir: Christophe Honoré
Feng Liu Yi Dai, dir: Jia Zhang-Ke
All We Imagine as Light, dir: Payal Kapadia
Kinds of Kindness, dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
L’Amour Ouf, dir: Gilles Lellouche Diamant Brut, dir: Agathe Riedinger Oh Canada, dir: Paul Schrader Limonov – The Ballad, dir: Kirill Serebrennikov
Parthenope, dir: Paolo Sorrentino
The Girl with the Needle, dir: Magnus von Horn
Un Certain Regard
Norah, dir: Tawfik Alzaidi
The Shameless, dir: Konstantin Bojanov
Le Royaume, dir: Julien Colonna Vingt Dieux, dir: Louise Courvoisier Le Procès du Chien (Who Let the Dog Bite?), dir: Laetitia Dosch
Gou Zhen (Black Dog), dir: Guan Hu The Village Next to Paradise, dir: Mo Harawe
September Says, dir: Arian Labed L’Histoire de Souleymane, dir: Boris Lojkine
The Damned, dir: Roberto MinerviniOn Becoming a Guinea Fowl, dir: Rungano Nyoni
Boku No Ohisama (My Sunshine), dir: Hiroshi Okuyama
Santosh, dir: Sandhya Suri
Viet and Nam, dir: Truong Minh Quy Armand, dir: Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel
Out of Competition
She’s Got no Name, dir: Chan Peter Ho-Sun
Horizon, An American Saga, dir: Kevin Costner
Rumours, dir: Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, dir: George Miller
Midnight Screenings
Twilight of the Warrior Walled In, dir: Soi Cheang
The Surfer, dir: Lorcan Finnegan
Les Femmes Au Balcon, dir: Noémie Merlant
I, The Executioner, dir: Ryoo SeungWan
Cannes Premiere
Everybody Loves Touda, dir: Nabil Ayouch
C’est Pas Moi, dir: Leos Carax En Fanfare (The Matching Bang), dir: Emmanuel Courcol
Miséricorde, dir: Alain Guiraudie Le Roman de Him, dir: Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu
Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot, dir: Rithy Panh
Special Screenings
Le Fil, dir: Daniel Auteil
Ernest Cole, Lost and Found, dir: Raoul Peck
The Invasion, dir: Sergei Loznitsa Appendre, dir: Claire Simon
La Belle de Gaza, dir: Yolande Zauberman
between commerciality and experimentation. Anthemic without sacrificing an iota of Talking Heads’ idiosyncratic otherness, it could only be them.
3. Psycho Killer (1977)
There is a great video of the original three-piece Talking Heads playing live in 1975. The performance is shaky, but their definitive early song is already fully formed: the twisting, hookladen bassline, the unnerving vocal, the section in French. Every element that makes it sound great nearly 50 years on is in place.
2. Life During Wartime (1979)
The ominous mood of Fear of Music at its peak: lyrics sung from the point of view of a holed-up terrorist, the most famous of his imprecations – “This ain’t no party! This ain’t no disco!” – at odds with the supremely funky music. Paranoia has rarely sounded so danceable.
1. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (1983)
In a sense, This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) is an atypical Talking Heads track. It’s a straightforward love song, at odds with Byrne’s remote, geeky public persona. It’s placid, gentle and powered by directness and simplicity: Byrne and Tina Weymouth swapped instruments in search of the naivety of the title. There are hypnotic instrumental passages, including a full minute before Byrne’s voice appears, that feel as striking as the vocal. But, atypical or not, it’s wonderful, glowing with inviting warmth. It’s not just about falling in love – and “I came home / She lifted up her wings / I guess that this must be the place” is a beautiful way of putting it – it sounds like falling in love.