Who was Dave Allen and what was his cause of death?
Dave Allen – real name David Tynan O’Mahony – was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 6, 1936. If he was still alive, he’d be 81.
He first appeared on UK TV when he featured on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959.
But he found fame – infamy, if you will – in Australia in 1963.
He hosted Tonight with Dave Allen, a television talk show with Channel 9 – but was banned from the Aussie airwaves within six months after making crude comments during a live broadcast.
Dave returned to the UK shortly after, and he went on to host Tonight with Dave Allen on ITV. The show earned him Variety Club’s ITV Personality of the Year Award.
He later signed with the BBC, where he hosted a number of shows – and he became famous for his solo joke-telling-while-sitting-on-a-stool-and-drinking routine.
He died on March 10, 2005, at the age of 68.
David passed away peacefully in his sleep as a result of Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome at his home in Kensington, London.
Dave was known for his razor sharp wit, and was a master storyteller.
Here are three of his best known jokes and stories:
On the Irish skill of giving directions
“I suppose Ireland is the best place in the world for directions. People will say to you, ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’.
“I was driving to Wicklow town and outside Wicklow town there’s a kind of country road and I came to a cross road and there was one sign post and it had Wicklow on it and the other way was Wicklow. And there was a fella sitting there and I said does it make any difference? And he said, ‘Not to me it doesn’t’.
“The classic: on my way to Limerick and I said to this fella do you know where this place is? And he said, ‘Ahh yes. Ahh yes. Ohh God yes. Now go down the road, straight down the road just follow your nose. Ahh keep going straight and you’ll see a turn on the right hand side. Now ignore that. And then there’s a second turn on the right hand side and ignore that one as well. There’s two, three, four, five. Five turns on the right hand side, ignore them. Then you see a house on the left hand side, turn left there. That’s where you want to go’.
“And I said why did you tell me about all the right hand turns? Why didn’t you just say take the first on the left? And he said ‘Who’s giving these directions, me or you?'”
Turning grey
“You can become grey because of various different reasons. It can be hereditary. A malfunction of the genes can cause greyness. Anemia causes greyness; lacking Vitamin B and Vitamin F causes greyness. Vast quantities of liquids, cause greyness.
“Shock causes greyness. Terror, fear, shock, actually it’s been recorded that a man went from being totally black haired to totally white haired in something like seven minutes.
“That’s an interesting thing, the body hair on my body, I’m going grey at the top of my head, but the rest of my body hair is black. My eyebrows are black. My beard is black. My hands are black. My legs, my chest is black. I noticed recently, I was having a bath, I noticed that I had my first white pubic hair.
“Now what did he see that the others didn’t see? Can you imagine you’re one of those little hairs turning around to the other grey hair… “What did you see?” ‘I saw… I saw.. Ahhhh!’ …Another one.”
The boozy nun
“An old drunk is on his way into a bar when a nun standing outside the bar suddenly speaks to him. ‘Your drinking is the easy road to evil and damnation. Drink will pollute your body and soul. Give up the foul spirits and live a better life!’
The drunk looks at her and asks, ‘How do you know that drinking is so bad for you?’
The nun looks puzzled and shrugs. The drunk asks, ‘Have you ever even tried a drink?’ The nun admits she hasn’t, so the drunk tells her, ‘Listen, I’ll go into the bar and order myself a drink and I’ll get one for you too. I’ll bring it out here and you can taste it yourself and see that alcohol is nothing bad’.
“The nun reluctantly agrees, but says, ‘I don’t want anybody out here getting the wrong idea about me, so would you mind bringing me the drink in a paper cup?’ The drunk agrees to this and goes inside. At the bar he tells the bartender ‘Give me a double shot of whiskey, and a second half shot in a paper cup’.
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