Keith Allen A Taste of My Life

Welcome to A Taste Of My Life, the show that serves up famous lives on a plate.

What we eat can tell us an awful lot about who we are.

Whether it's the food we love, or hate.

Taking a culinary trip down memory lane can evoke memories,

both good and bad.

Which is why I'm going to guide today's famous face

through the tastes and flavours of their life.

Now, today's guest can be best described in just a few words.

He's unpredictable.

# I know all there is to know about the crying game

# Share of the crying game...

He's definitely been something of a rabble-rouser in his time.

You're so thick. I'm going home, then.

You're so...dead.

You really are dead!

And I like your telephone manner, it's nice.

And he's known as something of a tough nut.

Forest, chased by hounds.

Guards, guards!

In my own room? In my own room?

Where are the men? This is nothing to do with Robin Hood!

Yes, today's guest is Keith Allen.

As long as he behaves himself.

Coming up in today's show...

Keith Allen's son Alfie makes bangers and mash,

and tells us about Keith the dad.

People get the wrong impression of my dad.

I've never had any complaints about him,

so I don't know why Lily does.

Keith and I take each other on in a cook-off,

to make the perfect Yorkshire pudding.

-So you beat your eggs separately?

-I'm just gonna lie. Always.

And bad boy of British art, and Keith's buddy,

Damien Hirst, cooks up a work of art.

What is wrong with chefs?

They're either rubbish at their job, or they're rotten people.

You get nothing in the middle.

-Keith Allen, welcome to A Taste Of My Life.

-Thank you.

Now, you were born in Wales.

-Your father was a submariner.

-Mm-hm.

Are we talking family meals? Did you sit round?

No, that was never a big thing.

It was because time was so fractured.

My dad was either away on a submarine, and not there,

or my mum was at work.

But there was with my grandmother,

when we used to go and stay with my grandmother in Wales.

That was a big thing.

Are there any particular things that she'd make that you miss?

Anything you really loved?

My favourite meal was stuffed hearts.

That was a very, very common dish.

No surprise, then, that the Sheriff of Nottingham eats stuffed sheep's hearts.

But don't go all funny at the knees.

For my stuffing, I'm using bacon, onions,

and a healthy dose of lemon rind,

to cut through the heart's richness, though you COULD use orange.

There is this sort of yucky thing about offal,

but in fact, it's absolutely delicious.

-We ate stuffed hearts. We ate liver.

-Did you really?

Yes, we ate liver.

We ate a lot of liver, actually.

But you're right. It was...

I mean, it was a money thing, more than anything else.

I'm also using suet, as well as bread crumbs,

for an extra-rich flavour to the stuffing.

But also, there was something about,

certainly MY mother, wanting to use bits that other people didn't.

The bits that actually are delicious.

The kidneys and that sort of thing, that now, people think, "Yuk."

Because we're prone to being a bit squeamish,

it won't come as a surprise that hearts are rarely seen in our supermarkets.

If you want a comparison, their taste is very similar to venison.

I haven't eaten this for 30 years, 25 years, now.

I'm trying to picture you as a little boy.

For some reason, I'm thinking of you always being a bit naughty.

I remember, years ago, Ken Campbell the playwright,

he directed a play that I saw up in Hull.

One of the characters was describing somebody as being like a stoat.

What a stoat does is,

you put it in a little cage, and then it scratches away at that,

and gets out of the cage into the kitchen.

Then it scratches the kitchen door and gets to the garden.

That's what I was like.

And they would find me in various places in the house.

I'd be in the airing cupboard.

I'd climb up into the airing cupboard, and sleep by the boiler.

At other times, I'd open the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers,

get in with the blankets, and shut the drawer.

-I can see you being the face of...

-Hearts.

Blackcurrant pie, as made by Keith's nan.

The great thing about blackcurrants is that they freeze incredibly well,

so this can be made all year round.

To thicken the pie filling, use cornflour.

But don't just throw it in. It'll get lumpy.

Instead, smooth the cornflour into a paste first,

using the currant juice.

You could add some cinnamon to the pastry,

to give your pie a bit of personality.

And you shouldn't feel too guilty about this.

After all, the blackcurrants ARE full of Vitamin C and antioxidants.

Well, that's my excuse.

Wow! And there's steam coming off it.

Look at that inside. It's so beautiful.

Would you say that it was a happy childhood?

Happy's the wrong word. It was busy.

It was a very, very busy childhood.

To say that your dad is a submariner is a conversation stopper amongst kids.

-It's like, "Wow!"

-Oh, yeah.

But the bad boy Keith Allen we've all come to know,

and, sometimes, love, wasn't something he grew into.

All the signs of mischief were there from an early age.

You did spend some time in a detention centre.

-You went to borstal.

-I went to remand homes,

hostels, detention centre, borstal.

And boarding school and a comprehensive.

And prison. All the institutions, I've done.

Borstal, I put my hands up and say, I really enjoyed it.

I can't imagine the food was particularly exciting.

Institutional food, sadly, isn't.

No, but it was very welcome.

And when not locked up in an institution,

he was back at his nan's, tucking into the Welsh classic cawl soup.

I know that it has to be neck of lamb.

OK, cos I have heard people say that you CAN use beef,

it depends what's around.

I have never, in my life.

-That's not cawl, that's Irish stew.

-So, it's a proper neck of lamb?

It HAS to be neck of lamb.

As Keith says, neck of lamb really is the best option here,

as it benefits from slow cooking.

But I might have to take issue with him.

You really could throw in lamb, mutton, beef, pork,

or even bacon, if you wanted to.

Perfect cawl is to make it the day before,

and then leave it overnight,

and eat it the following day, which I still do.

It's that strange thing that something happens overnight,

-that is nothing to do with the cook, it's just the food.

-It's thinking.

It is thinking, exactly, it's settling down,

and all the ingredients marry, and get to know each other.

I feel the same about a few things.

-Trifle's another one, in the fridge.

-Fantastic.

-And curry.

-Oh, yeah.

Given Keith's mishaps as a teenager,

it's maybe a touch ironic that the Welsh phrase,

"to make a cawl of something" means to mess something up.

I'm very cheap. My hearts of lamb and my neck of lamb.

-A cheap date.

-I am, aren't I?

-You said people should be naughty more often.

-Yes, I did.

If you'd been my godfather,

you might have encouraged me to not be the good boy all my life,

cos I've always been the good boy. I've never been naughty.

-Do you think you'll always be a naughty boy?

-No, I think you get bored with it.

There are other pleasurable things to do,

like watching your kids be naughty. I like that.

One of the secrets to parenting is to know when not to tell your kids off,

to let them get away with it, and pretend that you don't know.

As he moved into his 20s and 30s,

Keith Allen was to embrace the challenges of parenthood.

Most notably becoming father to one of our most popular darlings of the pop world, Lily Allen.

-How many kids have you got?

-A few.

-A few?

Eight.

I don't like talking about it.

You didn't see much of your dad, really.

Has that affected how you are as a dad?

-What sort of dad are you?

-It's very difficult when they read in the papers,

"Another three-day bender on drugs and drink,"

and you're trying to say, "Do your homework."

They go, "Hang on, Dad."

Interestingly, Lily's discovered what I've been telling her for years.

I would say, "That's not true."

She'd go, "It is." "I swear it's not."

Within three days of her being a recognisable face,

she's on the phone, going, "I can't believe these people."

They just make it up.

Your family, one of them's got a little message for you.

This'll be brilliant. The 35-year-old.

"So you're my father, are you?"

'Just sausage, mash and beans.'

Really simple.

He's cooked me roasts and stuff plenty of times.

I think that's really the only proper meal he can cook, to be honest.

Like every good man should.

He's right.

How many of these do you think I should do?

-About five of those.

-Five!

-Lily's the same.

-He's a lovely guy.

He's very affectionate.

Sometimes, he's really crap at doing small things,

but then when it comes to being there when you really need him,

he's brilliant at it.

-He's a lovely dad, but he's a...

-Isn't that sweet?

Like all dads, they CAN be a bit useless at times.

He's always been there for me. I know stuff with Lily, and that,

people kind of get the wrong impression of my dad.

He's not like that at all.

The papers want to put a picture out there

about him being quite a distant dad,

and wasn't really there most of the time, but that's absolute rubbish.

He was there, and I've never had any complaints about him.

So I don't know why Lily does.

Really, he's just a chilled-out guy.

He's not really that mad, or not mad in a bad way, but sort of...

Goes out and has it large all the time. That's not my dad.

Well, that looks great, Nigel, that.

This is for my dad.

He's going to enjoy it a lot, I hope.

We love him to bits. You can't not love Dad.

-Aw!

-And his flat Yorkshire pudding is great.

We love the flat Yorkshire pudding.

Dad, I want you to cook Yorkshire pudding with Nigel Slater.

Have a cook-off. See who cooks it best.

I know that yours is, shall we say, flat Yorkshire pudding,

but I think you can do it, and I want to see it happen.

-So, make it happen.

-I wish!

-Can I eat a bit of it?

-Course you can.

-Just a little.

There are two things which I think every man should be able to make, scrambled egg...

..and mashed potato.

Alfie has given you the challenge. Are you up for it?

Yeah, I'll have a go. Definitely.

You'll have to remind me of how to do it.

-No problem.

-God, that's good!

OK, time to show the sheriff a trick or two.

Why is he so sure that Dad's puddings are always flat?

Because they always are!

Having said that, I'm really going to focus on this.

-But do you do it the right way?

-I don't know. I'm going to copy you.

My mum always told me that the key is how hot this is,

-before you put the mix in with it.

-She's completely right.

What you want, ideally, is that sort of "swoosh"

of batter going in the hot fat.

When people say it won't rise,

it's because they didn't get their fat hot enough.

It's not a race. You go on the top.

-No, you go on the top.

-Thank you.

Now, this is how I mix mine. Ha ha!

Hm-hm!

You beat your eggs separately.

I'm just going to lie, always.

My mum used to let her batter rest.

Yes, for about 20 minutes.

I think it is the fact that the gluten can rest.

-You're not shocking it by...

-Uh-huh.

The magic works if you leave things alone.

You're not making rock cakes!

If we were making muffins, I would say yes, that's right, yeah.

-Is your whisk bigger than mine?

-No.

-Really!

-Now put salt.

That's mine.

This looks so easy.

No, it's not hot enough.

It's not hot enough.

I've got to go back.

-Is it?

-It really isn't hot enough.

But mine was on the top.

Actually, yours has bubbled up.

Yes, good! See!

I'm gonna have to stick mine on top for a bit.

Yeah, but you very cleverly kept me talking for a couple of minutes,

while my fat cooled down. That's too much.

Your cup might overfloweth, there.

You know, shape...

-You've done worse than me!

-I've dribbled! I've so dribbled!

Yours are rising already!

Perfect mix. See! Tennis elbow.

It's not fair I get the bottom shelf.

Now, my suggestion, Nigel, right, is...

-We take them out...

-Yeah...

Lie them on the thingy-bob here...

And then you can show the people at home...

I got the bottom shelf!

Look...

-Yes. These are the ones you get in a packet.

-You got the top bunk.

I certainly did.

But there's a lesson to be learnt,

for all aspiring Yorkshire pudding makers.

-Which is, get the top shelf.

-Get the top shelf.

I tell you what. Look, look.

Look.

It's like slowly murdering a jellyfish.

Look at that.

And that.

Look, burnt on the...

It's worse by the minute.

If I could help you out,

I don't think you put enough goose fat in there.

I really don't.

Still to come on A Taste of My Life...

Keith talks about the joys

of playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood.

I get everyone else to do my fighting.

"This is the Sheriff, go and fight him."

All these things, you have to consider, when you take a part.

The world's most successful living artist, Damien Hirst,

makes a rather expensive sauerkraut for his drinking buddy.

And over his final feast,

Keith Allen considers what the future holds in store for him.

-What is the future?

-Don't grow up.

You do have a bit of a reputation as a party animal.

-You love a good party, don't you?

-Yep. Yeah, I do.

Alfie's right. I do have this reputation.

I'm one of these people, I never, ever drink at home.

I've never drunk at home.

I have an idea of people going down the list, thinking,

"What's going to make this party work?"

-and it's, "Invitation to Keith."

-Yeah.

There is that sort of...

I know, they'd be right, because I'm only there to have a good time,

and it's because anything can happen.

Talking of the unexpected...

-It's my old headmaster, naked.

-I'm afraid so(!)

I've sat up there, with him.

I was going to do roast pork, roast potatoes with sauerkraut,

which I've done, I think, before, when Keith's come down.

So, this is a little number I wrote back in...

I learnt to cook this when I was in prison.

I'm sure I've cooked this for him when he's been down here.

In the glory years.

I always think that cooking's like art, without the evidence.

If you make a piece of art,

then it's around for sometimes longer than we're around.

I think I was aware of him in the Groucho Club,

when Keith was in there being a mental case,

and I always used to look at him and think,

"Oh, my God, what's that guy like?" He was quite intimidating, really.

Like 12 years ago, my girlfriend Maia came down to me,

and she says, "I've got a confession to make."

And I said, "What?"

She said, "I've asked Keith Allen to be Connor's godfather."

My 11-year-old son now. I went, "Oh, no! I can't believe it!"

I was like, "What? That nutcase? I can't believe it."

Then he came right up to me, and he went, "I'm the godfather."

I was like, "Oh, jeez." Mr Give.

I don't understand Mr Give.

I remember being drunk, talking to Keith,

and he's always concerned about me and giving me guidance.

Whenever I turn round to him, "What about you?"

He'd always go, "Don't worry about me, I'm Mr Give."

Is that cider? Champagne?

-Champagne?

-That's the secret ingredient for my sauerkraut.

When I first met Keith, I was intimidated,

but we'd go in the Groucho Club,

and you'd see all the Rowan Atkinsons and Rik Mayalls,

and while Keith was a kind of nutter,

they all respected him really massively.

In a way, a bit like John Lennon, or something like that.

I've always admired those people who area working-class hero,

or people who remain true to who they are,

as they go up the greasy pole.

What is wrong with chefs?

They're either rubbish at their job,

or they're rotten people, aren't they?

You get nothing in the middle.

Slowing down? I don't know.

I think he's slowing down, and we can have a civilised time,

and then I see him at eight in the morning,

with bloodshot eyes, going, "I'm Dad!"

Fantastic.

Oh, look at that.

Wow.

Sadly, we can't eat Damien's roast pork with sauerkraut.

I think he sold it to the Tate.

Very good!

After Keith's bout of bad behaviour,

he discovered an ability to make people laugh,

and increasingly found himself rubbing shoulders with comedians and actors.

I became a comedian for a bit.

And then ended up presenting a TV show, Whatever You Want,

which was the first youth TV access programme,

and on the strength of that, wrote stuff for The Comic Strip.

-Talk me through breakfast, Roy.

-Thanks, Mum.

My favourite breakfast.

Nobody does bangers like my mum. Is that all right?

And it was through The Comic Strip that I started to act.

The thing I think of, when I think of you, is Shallow Grave.

Which I can watch over and over again,

partly because I put myself in the position of your flatmates.

What would happen if Keith Allen suddenly became my flatmate,

and then dropped dead, and left a big suitcase of money.

It's a great premise, isn't it?

All this success that you've had,

has it changed what you eat, and how you think about food, at all?

I think I've got a slightly more sophisticated palate than I had when I was younger.

Otherwise, I just had my head in a bag of Maris potatoes.

-You've got a favourite dish.

-A warm potato...

..and herring salad.

-Is this the Swedish version?

-No, I got it in France.

Hmmm, a curious taste of success.

When making a potato salad, try and use yellow-fleshed waxy potatoes.

-This way, they'll keep their shape.

-Just really, really simple,

but it's something that I try and eat as much as I can, anywhere.

And I've seen it on quite a few menus.

Add your vinaigrette to the potatoes whilst they're still warm,

so that the spuds soak up the flavour.

Every nation has its own twist on warm potato salad.

Germans add a bit of tomato, peppers and bacon.

The Greeks prefer it with garlic, olive oil and lemon,

whilst Italians go for fresh parsley, salami and olive oil.

It's part of that great history of potato-and-fish dishes,

whether it's as simple as fish and chips,

-or whether it's a fishcake, or a fish pie.

-Mm.

It just works, it's the textures.

The thing about the herring is that little bit of sharpness, sometimes,

-with the warm spuds.

-Yeah.

-Just completely gorgeous.

-It's brilliant. See, I AM sophisticated.

Herring. An ultra-healthy fish option.

I'm simply using a warmed rollmop, or pickled herring,

for this dish, which is simply laid on top.

A beautiful little side dish to this is beetroot salad.

Use just a couple of chopped and cooked beetroots,

and mix in some creme fraiche.

Add some dill, and hey presto,

a companion to the herring-and-potato salad.

And one of the biggest successes you've had was,

-of course, Martin Chuzzlewit.

-Yep.

-Did you enjoy it?

I did. Yeah, it was...

There was one afternoon when I was in this horse-drawn carriage.

Myself, Paul Schofield,

John Mills and Julian Fellowes,

and I think we must have...

I was praying that things would go wrong, so we could go round again,

cos I was just sat in this carriage with these three other guys,

-and then I suddenly thought, "My God, this really is brilliant."

-Pour one.

Oh yes, as much of that as you like.

'That's a once in a lifetime experience, that,

'to have done it with those people.

Seems pretty smooth to me.

And of course, now, the Sheriff.

A lot of people have said that you're the perfect person.

Well, I tell you what happened.

I went out, did it, and I think, about three or four weeks in...

..they liked what I did, and they said, "Can we go for lunch?"

This is the producers.

And I went to lunch, and they said,

"How would you feel about coming back next year?"

And I said, "Yeah, great."

"It seems a great idea. I like doing it."

They said "No, to be honest, in the original scripts, the Sheriff dies in episode 12."

I said, "Really?" and they said "Yes."

"We've decided, because we like the Sheriff, that he doesn't die. He comes back."

Not now, Locksley. "Oh, I won't kill you."

"I'm going to kill you, I mean it."

What's fantastic about it was I get everyone to do my fighting, and everything.

Cos he's the Sheriff. Go and fight him.

And it's 40 degrees, out in Budapest.

I just sit there in a chair going, "Brilliant. Wonderful part."

All these things you have to consider when you take a part.

Time to reflect on Keith's life over his final feast.

First up, it's some simply roasted poussin.

Keith, your final feast.

Tell me about these little chickens.

Why those?

They're so tender.

You don't have to cook them for a long time,

for the meat just to fall away from the bone.

I love the skin.

It's the youth of it, really. They're so young.

OK, you've got clams here, and you've got spaghetti.

Spaghetti vongole. Quintessential summer dish.

It's one of the great simple dishes of the world.

Pop your clams into a bowl, and thoroughly rinse in cold water.

The best way to spot a truly fresh clam is to tap it,

and check that it closes tightly.

A shy clam is a healthy clam.

There's a lot of seafood in my life, isn't there?

-There is. The caviar on your baked potatoes...

-Yeah.

Another no-frills dish.

Mix the insides of your potatoes with creme fraiche and chives,

and put back into your potato skins.

To get nice and crispy baked spuds, brush with oil,

and sprinkle with salt before popping them into the oven.

And then, it's luxury time.

-Caviar. Hot pud. Bread and butter pudding, is this?

-Yeah.

It's just all comfort food, isn't it? I make no bones about it.

Bread and butter pudding simply keeps getting better with time.

There are countless ways to make it,

though I'm going for the most traditional,

by adding sultanas and sprinkling some cinnamon,

but maybe you could try throwing in some whisky in with your custard,

for a grown-up taste.

Or even replace your sultanas with blueberries.

I mean, looking at this, this must be heaven.

Well, it is, it's heaven to me.

But people are often asked, "What would your favourite feast be?"

and they never, ever get it realised.

So this is fantastic, to physically see this.

What next? I mean, what is there for you to do?

Grow up.

Don't do that, don't do that!

I love having been given the opportunity

to be a baddie to a generation of kids.

You know, how many people get that opportunity?

It's incredible.

Do you regret anything you haven't done?

Anything that you think that you should have done?

I could have listened a bit more.

I'm one of those people that is of the moment.

I've always lived in the moment, and thought in the moment.

Which is great, but as you get older,

you have less and less moments to live in.

I think I was very arrogant when I was younger,

and I think that kind of edge has been taken off.

-Keith Allen, thank you...

-Thank you.

-It's been a real pleasure.

-..for being a guest on A Taste of My Life.

-It's a pleasure, thanks.

-Cheers. Nice wine.

It is with flies on it.

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