Alexei Sayle guns up the Fringe audience

Why is it that Roy Chubby Brown has performed in Wrexham when Alexei Sayle has not?

According to Mr Sayle himself, that's because no-one bothered to shoot "the ****" with a Heckler & Koch rifle before he took to the stage at Glyndwr University last November.

This was one of Sayle's characteristically blunt answers to a question from a member of the audience during his own appearance at the Llangollen Fringe last night (Sunday).

* Alexei Sayle copies of his books for fans
after the show. 

Of course it got a big laugh, as did his expletive-seasoned references to some other big names of showbiz, including former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion who is due to make his own appearance at the Fringe on Thursday.

In fact, his verbal attacks on the great man became sort of a running gag threading its way through Sayle’s two-hour some show in a packed Town Hall.

The gig revolved around the 80s comedy legend’s readings from his two books, Stalin Ate My Hamster and, the latest, Overtaken – copies of which he signed for delighted fans at the end of the evening.

These were amusing enough, as Sayle recounted his unusual Liverpool upbringing by parents who were both committed Communists.

His recollections sound funnier coming from the foul mouth of the Scouser himself rather than being paraphrased here.

But one that doesn’t lose too much in the re-telling was the story about how, in his early teens, he used a couple of heavy duty swear words to shock his mother only to discover to his horror that his own outburst brought forth a torrent of  language from her foul enough to shock a Liverpool docker.

The second half of the show was taken up with the question and answer session that prompted his attacks on old-style comics such as Roy Chubby Brown and Jim Davidson.

There were also some vicious side-swipes at the likes of Eddie Izzard and Alan Davies which again seemed to go down very well with the audience.   

He got a similar reaction when he had a pop at the late Lady Thatcher, saying he considered himself lucky to have been on a stage the day she died.

But one suspects it was nothing like the acclaim the same attack would have won him in the halcyon days when he was known as the abusive fat bloke in a too-tight suit.

Sayle’s now heading for the Edinburgh Fringe where, he admitted, he’d be louder and jump about quite a bit more on stage.

But judging by his warm reception in Llangollen, he can afford to dump that hackneyed old routine – now every bit as clichéd as the Roy Chubby Brown’s jokes he so obviously despises – and be just as funny by being gentler with his audiences.   

He also promised his Fringe audience that one day he will appear in Wrexham.

That’s presumably just as long as he’s not picked off first by a Chubby Brown fan with a high powered rifle.