Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Lily Allen · S1 E2
Keith
An actor, a comedian, a drinker — and the father she could never pin down
Pentonville Prison, mid-1980s. Keith Allen sits in a cell, serving twenty-one days for smashing up the Zanzibar nightclub in Covent Garden, while back home his daughter Lily is learning to walk.
Vindaloo by Fat Les (1998), official music video. Keith Allen, Damien Hirst, and Alex James from Blur formed Fat Les at the Groucho Club and recorded the unofficial 1998 World Cup anthem. It hit No. 2 in the UK. This is peak Keith Allen: brilliant, chaotic, and impossible to ignore.
The Boy from Gorseinon
Keith Howell Charles Allen is born on September 2, 1953, in Gorseinon, a small town outside Swansea in south Wales. He is expelled from boarding school at 13, sent to borstal at 15 for theft, and kicked out of drama college for "anti-social behaviour."
“You could say I wasted a lot of years. You could also say I had a f**king great time.”
— Keith Allen, Irish Times interview, 2022
Vindaloo by Fat Les (1998)
Conceived over drinks at the Groucho Club in May 1998, Keith roped in Damien Hirst and Blur bassist Alex James to create the most gloriously stupid World Cup anthem ever made. The chorus is just the word "Vindaloo" repeated over a terrace chant. It outsold the official England song and became a genuine cultural moment.
TAP TO REVEAL: Danny Boyle cast Keith in the same role twice without telling him
Smile by Lily Allen
Years later, Lily writes the ultimate revenge song about a man who did her wrong. The cheerful ska-pop melody hides real venom underneath. Knowing what we know about the men in her life, starting with her father, the sweetness of that revenge hits differently.
Keith Allen by the Numbers
What connects Keith Allen's roles in Shallow Grave and Trainspotting?
Keith is gone, but into the gap steps Alison's new partner, comedian Harry Enfield, who is kind, stable, and everything Keith wasn't. Next: the mother who held the whole thing together.
0 XP earned this session