# Keith Allen (actor)

Keith Howell Charles Allen (born 2 September 1953) is a Welsh actor, pantomime star and television presenter. He is the father of singer Lily Allen and actor Alfie Allen, and brother of actor and director Kevin Allen.

## Early life and education

Keith Howell Charles Allen was born on 2 September 1953 in Gorseinon, Wales. His father was Edward Charles Owen, a Royal Navy petty officer submariner, and his mother a Welsh waitress. His younger brother is actor Kevin Allen. He spent his early years near Swansea and in Malta, and most of his childhood in Gosport, Hampshire, while his father served in Portsmouth or away at sea. Although he spent much of his life in England, he regards himself as Welsh.
At the age of 11, when his father was posted to Singapore, he was sent to boarding school at Sir Anthony Browns Brentwood, a public school in Essex. He was expelled from the school at the age of 13 after meddling with organ pipes, causing trouble at morning assembly. This led to a period in borstal before attending Brune Park Community School in Gosport. He has said that he went to a comprehensive school in Swansea (where he was in 1966), a public school, a borstal, and a detention centre, all within five years. He earned six O-levels, leading to entry to the Welsh College of Music and Drama. Parking in the principal’s carpark and an ensuing row led to his expulsion from the college.

## Career

Allen has acted in both films and television, presented television programmers, and has also appeared in pantomimes.

### Early work

After having several jobs during the 1970s, including a job as a stagehand from which he was sacked after joining Max Bygraves' chorus line on stage naked, Allen worked as a stand-up comedian and vocalist, opening for punk bands such as The Clash.

### Acting career

He appeared in a number of films in the series The Comic Strip Presents... on Channel 4 in the 1980s after becoming one of the breakthrough acts of the Comedy Store in 1979. Notable episodes featuring Allen include The Bullshitters (a parody of The Professionals), and The Yob (a parody of The Fly). Allen appeared alongside fellow Comic Strip alumni as Pestilence in The Young Ones episode "Interesting." Allen has performed both straight and comedy acting. In 1985, The Comic Strip hit the big screen with The Supergrass starring Allen, Adrian Edmondson, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Robbie Coltrane. In 1986, he appeared in the film Comrades.
During the brief period of British Satellite Broadcasting as an alternative satellite broadcaster to Sky, he had a regular comedy show of his own I Love Keith Allen on the Galaxy channel.
Allen made a cameo appearance in the black comedy Twin Town, directed by his brother Kevin, and the Channel 4 adaptation of A Very British Coup. He played the lodger who dies at the beginning of Danny Boyle's thriller Shallow Grave (1994). In the same year, he played Jonas Chuzzlewit in a BBC adaptation of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit. He was used again by Boyle to play a drug dealer in Trainspotting (1996). Danny Boyle has said that Allen's character from Trainspotting is the same one that moves into the shared flat in Shallow Grave – he wears the same clothes. He also appeared disguised as a fictional hip-hop star "Keithski" to present Top of the Pops on 2 March 1995.
In 2000, Allen appeared in two Harold Pinter plays at the Almeida Theatre, playing Lambert in Celebration and Mr Sands in The Room. These were performed again at The Lincoln Center Festival in July 2001.
In 2001, he played the character of "problem-solver" Jim Napeworth in an episode of Murder in Mind, and in 2004 cameoed in Black Books as poker-player Dave 'Mouse Ears' Smith. In 2002 he played the London Records executive Roger Ames in 24 Hour Party People. Allen cameoed in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced in a short homage to the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining. He appeared as the villain in the sequel to 2004's Agent Cody Banks, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London. He appeared in the hospital drama, Bodies, as Mr Tony Whitman. From 2006 to 2009, Allen appeared in the BBC's Robin Hood drama series.
Allen has also starred in pantomimes, such as an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in 2008, written by Ken Ludwig and directed by Sean Holmes; he took the role of a gritty Long John Silver in the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
In January 2021, Allen played serial killer and rapist John Cooper in the ITV 3-part drama, The Pembrokeshire Murders. In 2023, Allen appeared as Dai Williams in the BBC crime drama Steeltown Murders.

### TV presenter

Allen presented the TV show Whatever You Want in 1982, during the early days of Channel Four and has presented television documentaries for Victor Lewis-Smith's Associated-Rediffusion Television Productions: Little Lady Fauntleroy (2004), which saw Allen interview Lauren Harries and her family, You're Fayed (2005) and on Michael Carroll – King of Chavs (2006). In 2007 his documentary Tourette De France appeared on Channel 4, in which he travelled with a group of Scottish people with Tourette syndrome, including John Davidson, on an AEC Routemaster bus from London to the Parisian hospital where this condition was described by Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1884.
Keith Allen Will Burn in Hell appeared on Channel 4 in June 2007, and showed Allen profiling the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps, and speaking to members of the church and Phelps's family.
Allen presented the Manchester Passion, a contemporary retelling of the last few hours in the life of Jesus on Good Friday, 14 April 2006.
Keith Meets Keith, screened on 14 September 2009 on Channel 4, in which Allen tracked down TV chef Keith Floyd. The show contained what turned out to be Floyd's final interview for television, as he died of a heart attack on the evening the documentary was screened.
Allen's documentary film about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Unlawful Killing was intended for release in 2011. Mohamed Al-Fayed, the film's only financial backer, contributed the film's £2.5 million budget. Allen argued in The Guardian that it detailed a "provable conspiracy after the crash". It accuses Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret of being "gangsters in tiaras" and Prince Philip of being a "psychopath". Allen said he refused to make 87 cuts asked for by lawyers to enable the film to be shown in Britain. His film was permanently shelved in 2012 after it became known it could not be screened in the United States as it was impossible to insure it against potential litigation.

### Music

Allen was a member of London punk band the Atoms in the 1970s, and later Fat Les.
In 1980, he starred as the Devil in a short movie called Meteor Madness which featured London psychobilly band The Meteors. The film played in cinemas as the opening to the Two-Tone film Dance Craze which was released in February 1981. That was the only time Meteor Madness was shown.
He was also closely associated with the band New Order, directing the video for their 1993 song "Ruined in a Day", which depicts Allen and the band members immersed in a bizarre game of charades with a group of Buddhist monks. He co-wrote their only UK number one single, "World in Motion", and occasionally performed with them live, including their headline show at the Reading Festival in 1998. He also appeared in the band's DVD New Order Story.
He has been involved in several other football-related records, including "England's Irie" by Black Grape and wrote the lyrics for "Vindaloo" by Fat Les. He also contributed the song "On Me Head, Son" to the film Mike Bassett: England Manager.

## Personal life

As a guest on Top Gear on 9 December 2007, Allen said that claims he had eight children were not true and that he actually has six children by four women. His children include pop singer Lily Allen and actor Alfie Allen with his first wife Alison Owen. He married his second wife, Nira Park, in 1997. After his divorce from Park, Allen became the partner of actress Tamzin Malleson (who starred alongside him in Bodies), and the couple had a daughter, Teddie Allen, in 2006. They live in Stroud, Gloucestershire. In 2017, Allen and Malleson opened a diner in Stroud, built with the diner set of Kingsman: The Golden Circle which Allen recovered after shooting the film.
In the mid-1980s Allen served a 21-day jail sentence in Pentonville Prison after being found guilty of criminal damage at the Zanzibar club in Covent Garden.
Although a staunch socialist, whose political philosophy was influenced by the Workers' Revolutionary Party, Allen has expressed grudging admiration for Conservative Party politicians David Cameron and William Hague.
Allen has on his shoulder a tattoo of Rinka the dog, owned by Norman Scott, which was shot dead during the Jeremy Thorpe scandal. He has explained that: "I had the tattoo placed on my arm lest I forget, so I have a history of having suspicions about the establishment and the government and court cases".
He is a supporter of Fulham Football Club.

## Selected filmography
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1985 | The Supergrass | Wong | |
| 1985 | Loose Connections | Keith | |
| 1986 | Comrades | James Hammett | |
| 1988 | The Yob | Patrick Church | |
| 1989 | Scandal | Kevin | |
| 1990 | Chicago Joe and the Showgirl | Lenny Bexley | |
| 1992 | Carry On Columbus | Pepi The Poisoner | |
| 1993 | The Young Americans | Jack Doyle | |
| 1994 | Shallow Grave | Hugo | |
| 1994 | Beyond Bedlam | Marc Gilmour | |
| 1994 | Captives | Lenny | |
| 1995 | Blue Juice | Mike | |
| 1996 | Loch Ness | Gordon Shoals | |
| 1996 | Trainspotting | The Dealer | |
| 1997 | Twin Town | Emrys | |
| 2000 | Rancid Aluminium | Dr Jones | |
| 2001 | The Others | Mr. Marlish | |
| 2001 | My Wife Is an Actress | Dave, The Film Director | |
| 2001 | Mike Bassett: England Manager | Himself | |
| 2004 | Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London | Victor Diaz | |
| 2004 | De-Lovely | Irving Berlin | |
| 2008 | A Film with Me in It | Jack | |
| 2011 | Unlawful Killing | Narrator | Also director |
| 2013 | Vinyl | Minto, band member | |
| 2015 | Hector | Jimbo | |
| 2016 | Eddie the Eagle | Terry, Father | |
| 2017 | Kingsman: The Golden Circle | Charles | |
| 2021 | La Cha Cha | Paulie | |
| 2021 | Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins | Dave Simms | |
| 2023 | The Buckingham Murders | Miller | |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1982 | The Young Ones | Pestilence | Episode: "Interesting" |
| 1988 | A Very British Coup | Thompson | 3 episodes |
| 1989–1991 | Making Out | Rex Buckley | 12 episodes |
| 1993 | Inspector Morse | John Peter Barrie | Episode: "The Day of the Devil" |
| 1994 | Faith | Jeff Wagland | 4 episodes |
| 1994 | Martin Chuzzlewit | Jonas Chuzzlewit | 6 episodes |
| 1996 | Sharman | Brady | Episode: "Hearts of Stone" |
| 1997 | Born to Run | Byron Flitch | 6 episodes |
| 1998 | The Life and Crimes of William Palmer | Dr. William Palmer | 2 episodes |
| 1999 | Jack of Hearts | Jack Denby | 6 episodes |
| 2000–2001 | Bob Martin | Vinnie | 11 episodes |
| 2004 | Black Books | Dave "Mouse Ears" Smith | Episode: "A Little Flutter" |
| 2004 | Little Lady Fauntleroy | Presenter | Channel 4 documentary |
| 2004–2006 | Bodies | Dr. Tony Whitman | 17 episodes |
| 2005–2011 | New Tricks | Roger McHugh | 2 episodes |
| 2006–2009 | Robin Hood | Vaisey, Sheriff of Nottingham | 34 episodes |
| 2007 | Mobile | Sir James Corson | 3 episodes |
| 2009 | Keith Meets Keith | himself | Television film; also director |
| 2010–2011 | The Runaway | Danny Dixon | 6 episodes |
| 2011 | Case Histories | Richard Moat | 2 episodes |
| 2011 | The Body Farm | D.I. Hale | 6 episodes |
| 2013 | Great Night Out | Darren, the farmer | Episode: #1.5 |
| 2013 | By Any Means | Nicholas Mason | Episode: #1.1 |
| 2014–2015 | My Mad Fat Diary | Victor | 3 episodes |
| 2015 | Uncle | Uncle Frank | Episode: #2.5 |
| 2016 | We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story | Paul Fox | Television film |
| 2016 | Time Crashers | Himself | |
| 2016 | Death in Paradise | Neil Jenkins | Episode: "Lost Identity" |
| 2018 | Marcella | Alan Summers | 6 episodes |
| 2021 | The Pembrokeshire Murders | John Cooper | 3 episodes |
| 2021 | Midsomer Murders | Harry Marx | Episode: "The Stitcher Society" |
| 2022 | Agatha Raisin | Rev. Arthur Chance | Episode: "A Spoonful of Poison" |
| 2023 | Steeltown Murders | Dai Williams | 4 episodes |

### Music videos

| Year | Title | Role |
| 1990 | ENGLANDneworder: "World in Motion" | Himself |
| 1995 | Blur: "Country House" | Successful Fella |
| 1998 | Fat Les: "Vindaloo" | Narrator |

## Books

* Allen, Keith (June 2007). Grow Up. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-191070-9.