Dave Allen

Dave Allen, born David Tynan O'Mahony on 6 July 1936 in the Firhouse suburb of Dublin, was an Irish comedian, satirist, and actor whose Broadway credits include An Evening With Dave Allen in 1981. He died on 10 March 2005. His father, Cullen "Pussy" O'Mahony, served as managing editor of The Irish Times and was the son of writer Nora Tynan O'Mahony and a nephew of writer Katharine Tynan. His mother, Jean Archer, was a housewife. During the Irish War of Independence, his father served with British Forces in the Auxiliary Division and subsequently joined Britain's Palestine Police Force. Following the 1941 North Strand bombings, Allen, his brothers, and their mother relocated to Keenagh, County Longford for approximately eighteen months before returning to Dublin, where the family settled at Cherryfield, a house situated between Firhouse and Templeogue Bridge. Allen attended Newbridge College, Terenure College, and the Catholic University School. His father died when Allen was twelve, and his mother moved the family to England when he was fourteen.

Allen initially pursued journalism, joining the Drogheda Argus as a copy boy before traveling to Fleet Street in London at the age of nineteen. He worked a variety of jobs before becoming a Butlins Redcoat at Skegness, performing alongside British jazz trumpeter and writer John Chilton. During slow periods in his entertainment career, he worked at a toy shop in Sheffield and sold draught excluders door to door. At the suggestion of his agent, who felt that few people in the United Kingdom could pronounce O'Mahony correctly, he adopted the stage surname Allen, partly because a name beginning with the letter A would place him higher on agents' lists.

His first television appearance came on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959. In the early 1960s he hosted pop music tours, including shows headlined by Adam Faith and Helen Shapiro. In early 1963 he served as compere for a British tour headlined by Shapiro that also featured The Beatles. In 1962 he toured South Africa with American vaudeville performer Sophie Tucker, who encouraged him to try his luck in Australia. Working there with Digby Wolfe on Australian television, Allen became Wolfe's resident comedian. In July 1963 he headlined the Channel 9 talk show Tonight with Dave Allen, which debuted on 4 July of that year. Six months into the run, he was banned from Australian airwaves after telling his producer during a live broadcast to go away and masturbate while he continued an interview with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The ban was later lifted as his popularity remained strong. In July 1964 it was announced that Allen would present a series of five-minute radio programs for Sydney station 2UW under the title This Man's World.

Returning to the United Kingdom in 1964, Allen made appearances on ITV programs including The Blackpool Show and Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium, as well as the BBC's The Val Doonican Show. In 1967 he hosted Tonight with Dave Allen, a comedy and chat series produced by ATV, for which he received the Variety Club's ITV Personality of the Year Award. He signed with the BBC in 1968 and appeared on The Dave Allen Show, a variety and comedy sketch series. From 1971 to 1979 the BBC broadcast Dave Allen at Large, with both programs using a theme tune titled "Blarney's Stoned," written by Alan Hawkshaw and originally recorded for KPM in 1969 under the title "Studio 69." The Dave Allen Show was broadcast from 1971 to 1986 and was exported to several European countries. Allen's television programs also aired in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Australia, and New Zealand. From 1975 to 1977 he returned to Australia to produce The Dave Allen Show for Channel 9. New series of his comedy program, retitled Dave Allen, were broadcast from 1981 until 1990, and Allen experienced a major resurgence in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s before retiring in 1998.

Allen also pursued stage work. In 1972 he played a doctor in the Royal Court's production of Edna O'Brien's play A Pagan Place. In 1973 and 1974 he appeared alongside Maggie Smith in a production of Peter Pan at the London Coliseum, playing the roles of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. His Broadway appearance came in 1981 with An Evening With Dave Allen.

Allen was also a television documentary presenter for ITV. His first such program, Dave Allen in the Melting Pot in 1969, examined life in New York City and addressed subjects including racism and drugs. Later documentaries included Dave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric and Eccentrics at Play, both from 1974. In 1979 he played a property man experiencing a mid-life crisis in Alan Bennett's television play One Fine Day.

His observational comedy regularly addressed political hypocrisy and religious authority, and his satirizing of Catholic ritual throughout Dave Allen at Large earned the show a risqué reputation. In 1977 the Irish state broadcaster RTÉ placed a de facto ban on Allen, though he continued to make appearances on The Late Late Show, where he was interviewed by Gay Byrne. Allen lost the top of his left index finger above the middle knuckle after it was caught in a machine cog, and he incorporated the injury into his act by inventing various comic explanations for the loss. His technique and style influenced younger British comedians.