Pembrokeshire Murders
The unhinged and uncompromising life of Pembrokeshire Murders actor Keith Allen
From stints in borstal and prison to drinking his own urine on stage in front of his mum, he's never been your typical 'luvvie'
Nathan Bevan
He's best known as one of the UK's most maverick celebs and has cornered the market in playing dark characters.
It's something no better demonstrated than by his quietly terrifying role as West Wales serial killer John Cooper in ITV's hit real-life crime drama The Pembrokeshire Murders - the third and final part of which airs on Wednesday, January 13 at 9pm.
But, from stints in borstal and prison to drinking his own urine on stage in front of his mum and (nearly) topping the pop charts with a football chant about curry, Gorseinon-born Allen's never been your typical 'luvvie'.
The 67-year-old was born to a waitress mother and English Royal Navy submariner father, and it was the latter's long absences away at a sea (or under it) which first saw him able to get up to lots of mischief.
"The mantra in my house was, 'Wait 'til your father gets home', but given that could usually take up to six months I'd make sure I had a laugh in the meantime," said Allen in one previous interview.
With his dad posted to Singapore, his teenage years saw him expelled from boarding school in Essex after switching around the pipes on the organ before morning assembly, turning the daily hymn signing session into a cacophonous disaster.
That was followed by the spell in borstal for stealing.
Unsettling as serial killer John Cooper in The Pembrokeshire Murders (Image: WORLD PRODUCTIONS/ITV)
People are arguing over the Welsh accents in The Pembrokeshire Murders
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"I would be a fool to say I enjoyed being in borstal, but when I was there I had a great time," Allen added.
"I guess there's a part of me that loves institutionalism. And borstal is tailor-made for you to buck against. It was perfect."
After getting six O-levels, he won a place in the Welsh College of Music and Drama but was expelled again after parking in the principal's space and getting into a furious row.
Various odd jobs kept him busy - from coal miner and roadie to running his own cafe in a squat - before he eventually made his way onto the alternative stand-up comedy circuit.
However, as per his trademark contrariness, Allen 'didn't do jokes'.
"I knew if you could hold an audience's attention you'd didn't have to be funny - some call it a cop-out, but I say it was more performance art, " he said - adding he even once downed a mug of his own urine live on stage, while his horrified mum watched from the audience.
"To this day I don't know why I did that," he laughed in one 2007 chat . "Wait, yes I do, I drank my urine because it was a brilliant visual gag.
"I'd just make my act up on the spot – sometimes it was searingly brilliant, other nights just s***.
The Fat Les video for Vindaloo - Keith is with Paul Kaye, while a young looking David Walliams and Matt Lucas lurk in the background
"It was very topical, but never overtly political like Ben Elton – plus mine was funny."
Definitely less amusing though was the time when an off-colour remark got him punched in the head on stage.
"It's the only time I got drunk before going on, but I did that deliberately – it was part of the act," Allen added.
"I tried to drink a bottle of tequila beforehand, just to see what would happen.
"The result was I got knocked out by a Grenadier Guardsman for doing a gag about that bandstand that the IRA blew up in Hyde Park in 1982 – terrible really."
He almost self-destructed his stage career long before that though, during a period when he was working as a stage-hand in the West End in 1976.
"Max Bygraves was on at the Victoria Palace and I just took offence to his show," remembered Allen.
"He was patronising his audience with all those corny old songs about the war and I thought I could do a better job of cheering them up."
With pop star daughter Lilly Allen in 2007 (Image: Getty Images)
So, stark naked, he linked arms with an unsuspecting chorus line to give the auditorium of little old ladies an eyeful with his high-kicking prowess.
"I followed that with my Max Wall impression and everyone just roared with laughter.
"Bygraves didn't though, he went f****** mental – the next day I went to France to pick grapes."
He ended up in prison for criminal damage in the mid-80s after smashing up the bar of the trendy Zanzibar Club in Covent Garden - an incident that later saw an honorary lifetime membership bestowed upon him by its equally exclusive rivals, The Groucho Club.
And it was at that legendary Soho hangout for trendy media types that he really played up to his hell-raising image - like the time Stephen Fry ordered a sausage breakfast and Damien Hirst got Allen to strip and instead present him with his private parts draped on a china plate.
"It's like I said before, if you can't behave like a complete t*** in your own private members' club then where can you?" he shrugged.
Fat Les – Allen's on-off pop venture - then got him to the number two spot in the charts with Vindaloo, his unofficial anthem for the England football team's 1998 World Cup campaign, eight years after he'd co-written the lyrics for New Order's similarly footie-themed track World In Motion.
There were also brief but memorable cameos in classic Brit flicks like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, before a scenery chewing role at the Sheriff of Nottingham in BBC One's revamped version of Robin Hood in the mid-Noughties saw him recast as the baddie-you-love-to-hate for a whole new generation.
As the Sheriff of Nottingham in BBC One's Robin Hood (Image: BBC)
He's also proven himself to be an accomplished documentary maker, with profiles on the likes of the USA's controversial Westboro Baptist Church and boozy TV chef Keith Floyd earning him critical acclaim.
But his film about the death of Princess Diana - entitled Unlawful Killing - became mired in legal controversy prior to its 2011 release and, as a result, has never been shown.
A dad-of-six - his children include the actor Alfie Allen and singer Lilly Allen - he now lives a quiet life with his actress girlfriend Tamzin Malleson - with whom he starred in the dark BBC hospital drama Bodies - in the Gloucestershire countryside.
Nevertheless, his unsettling performance in The Pembrokeshire Murders aside, it's his blink-and-you'll-miss-it turn in the 1997 Swansea flick Twin Town - directed by his brother Kevin - for which he's probably best remembered in his native Wales.
Fleeting it may be, but everyone remembers the hilarious scene where the Lewis twins (Rhys Ifans and his real-life brother Llyr) rustle up a hot dog and sprinkle it with magic mushrooms – only for Allen's farmer to inadvertently quaff it seconds later.
"Plenty of follow through on this, boys – very, very unusual," he burps, before being spotted shortly afterwards, completely out of it and cavorting naked with a sheep.
Keith in a scene from the film Twin Town (Image: mediawales)
It's a part which he's rumoured to be reprising should the long-mooted sequel, which has been scuppered by various production mishaps and a certain global pandemic, finally ever see the light of day.
"I was supposed to have a much more prominent part but other filming commitments got in the way," said Allen.
"I can't talk much about it, but what I will say is I've read the script and it's very good, really funny."
The Pembrokeshire Murders is on ITV tonight at 9pm.
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