Comedian, writer and ‘that fat one from The Young Ones’, Alexei Sayle is a man for all seasons, as Jade Wright finds out

ALEXEI SAYLE isn’t one to talk himself up. “Writing makes you rather dull company,” he says apologetically. “I sit on my own all day with just a computer. I’m getting less interesting by the day.”

I have to disagree. He is, by turns, witty, insightful and funny. Good job, really, as he’s signed up to give a talk about his life at Liverpool University tomorrow.

It’s part of their environment series.

“I’m looking at the environment in its broadest sense,” he chuckles. “I’m no expert on being green, but I can talk about a radical environment, and in particular Liverpool as a radical city.”

He certainly can. Growing up in Valley Road, Anfield, Alexei’s father was a railway guard, his mother worked for Littlewoods Pools. So far, so typical. But then, they were both members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and Alexei was exposed to politics before he could speak.

“My upbringing was specific to Liverpool. We were a radical family in a radical city,” he explains. He, too, joined the Communist Party of Britain, in the aftermath of the May, 1968, French uprising.

But, over the years, his views have mellowed, he says. After Alsop High School, in Walton, he took a foundation course in art at Southport, moving to London to study at the prestigious Chelsea College of Art and Design at 19.

Once there, he stayed in London, and responded to an advert for "would-be comedians" at the Comedy Store. He became its first master of ceremonies, and, in 1980, he was seen performing at the Edinburgh Festival by comedy producer Martin Lewis (producer of The Secret Policeman's Balls), who became his manager. Sayle became the leading performer at the new club, The Comic Strip, which led on to The Young Ones.

It was a far cry from his mum and dad back home in Liverpool, keeping the red flag flying.

“I can see their point of view now,” he says. “But I’d argue the case for flexible belief.

“I still think of myself as being radical and campaign for radical causes, but I’m suspicious of fervent belief. You have to have that capacity to believe you can be wrong.

“I’ll be talking about all of that at the university, and about my experience of travelling in Eastern Europe in the 1960s, looking at what it was like to be within that regime, through to the collapse of Communism and the post-Communist world.

“I’m going to try to sum up my own political belief in a few words,” he pauses for a second, and laughs. “Thinking about that, I’m not sure if that’s possible. I’m not sure that’s possible, however many words you give me. But I’ll do my best.

‘CAPITALISM is a fantastic system. In the West, it gives us great freedom. The problem is, it’s going to kill us all.

“To succeed, it needs to keep growing. Mathematically, that exponential growth is impossible. We need to find a new way of doing things.

“I think we’re on the way to that. There seems to be a new generation of politically active people. We’re getting protesters out in the streets again. The floodgates are opening, and the Parliamentary system will have to take note.”