Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown

Keith Philip George Allen is a British actor, comedian, musician, singer-songwriter, artist, author and television presenter. He is the father of singer Lily Allen and actor Alfie Owen-Allen. Allen was born on 2 June 1953 in Gorseinon, near Swansea, in south Wales, the second of three children,... the son of Edward Charles Owen, a Royal Navy submariner. His younger brother is actor Kevin Allen. He spent his early years near Swansea and in Malta, and most of his childhood in Gosport while his father served in Portsmouth. At the age of eleven he was sent to Brentwood boarding school in Essex when his father was posted to Singapore. He was expelled from the school at the age of thirteen. At the age of fifteen he was sent to a borstal after repeatedly being caught thieving, later saying that he "had a great time" there. 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 first found success as a stand-up comedian, opening for rock bands such as the Clash.
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Peter Richardson is an English actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Richardson is best known for founding the The Comic Strip troupe of performers, which showcased his double act with Nigel Planer and launched the careers of French and Saunders, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and Alexei... Sayle. Richardson approached Channel 4 to make a series of short, self-contained one-off comedy films with this group, which led to the The Comic Strip Presents, many of which were written, directed by and featured him in acting roles. Richardson began his career as a teenager acting in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On. Trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, in the late 1970s, he created his own experimental theatre shows with Nigel Planer amongst others, mixing comedy and improvisation with rock music. Two of these shows, Rank and The Wild Boys toured nationally. Although he did not reach the same level of public recognition as some of his contemporaries, Richardson was influential on British television comedy throughout the 1980s as the driving force behind The Comic Strip Presents...
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