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Banksy writes tribute to pioneering comedian Tony Allen

By Ian Youngs Entertainment & arts reporter

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Tony Allen has been described as the godfather of alternative comedy

Banksy has penned a rare statement to remember late comedian and "born troublemaker" Tony Allen.

The secretive artist normally lets his pictures do the talking but wrote his tribute to Allen for BBC Radio 4 obituary programme Last Word.

Allen, one of the founders of the alternative comedy movement in the 1970s, died at the start of December.

Banksy enlisted him to train the surly stewards at his dystopian theme park in Weston-super-Mare in 2015.

"Dismaland was organised in strict secrecy so in order to find the hundred or so stewards we needed, we advertised in the local paper for 'runners and extras' for a film shoot," Banksy recalled in his statement.

"I was concerned that when these young people discovered they weren't on a film set and in fact had to interact with the public all day, they might get a bit freaked out. So I asked Tony to come and host a few basic confidence-building workshops and hone their stewarding skills. It was essentially a pretty dry corporate gig for him.

"However Tony Allen was a born troublemaker. He took one look at the name of the event and for three days in the conference hall of a nearby hotel he trained the teenagers in his own image.

"He'd been left alone to get on with it, so come opening day we had no idea what was about to hit us. Tony delivered the most surly and incompetent employees in the history of hospitality.

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The Dismaland stewards were trained to be deliberately unhelpful

"They were truly dismal, incapable or unwilling to even point out the fire exits. They ignored any requests for information, they popped the balloons they were meant to be selling, they threw people's change on the floor, they even went up to random members of the public and licked their ice creams.

"Tony had instilled in them they should never break character, even when speaking to management. Our head of production lost their mind and threatened to quit. The council and police were not impressed and called a meeting.

"But by the end of the first day it was clear the stewards were a massive hit. They became by far the most talked about part of the show, overshadowing six months of my hard work and the efforts of 50 invited international artists.

"I had to hand it to him, Tony Allen really knew how to take the Mickey."

The deliberately gloomy Dismaland, which featured works by Banksy and other artists he picked, ran in a former open-air swimming baths in the Somerset seaside town for five weeks.

'Glorious free spirit'

Allen emerged in the late 1970s alongside Alexei Sayle at the forefront of a new and anarchic generation of comedians.

Although he did not find the same level of fame as Sayle and others, like Rik Mayall and Ben Elton, his influence was recognised by fellow comedians.

"Tony Allen was possibly the most important comic you never met," wrote Mark Thomas following his death. "RIP you glorious free spirit and contrarian."

Mark Steel said: "He (with Alexei Sayle) did most to start the jollity of the comedy scene we all know now."

Allen also co-founded the Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency, which matched squatters with vacant homes in west London. Their subversive spray-painted slogans like "Squat now while stocks last" may well also have appealed to Banksy.

Allen was a regular performer at the ground-breaking Comedy Store and Comic Strip clubs, wrote a number of theatre and radio plays, appeared in an episode of sitcom The Young Ones, and taught stand-up comedy.

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