penny readings with alexei sayle and frank cottrell boyce

By Catherine Jones on Dec 7, 09 12:21 PM

I went to my first ever Penny Readings at St George's Hall last night which turned out to be a homespun affair of readings and music.
It's always a pleasure to listen to Frank Cottrell Boyce (here reading the nativity scene bit of Millions) and I always like a bit of Dickens at this time of year.

But I have to say I really enjoyed Alexei Sayle's appearance, first reading from his own "Communist Christmas in Anfield", then a touch of Dave Sedaris, and then in the comically shambolic raffle prize draw at the interval and featuring the "standard lamp of fortune."
You had to be there for that one.
A Communist Christmas was hilarious if only for the fact you could see very clearly the picture Alexei painted of the "two thirds Jewish atheist communist" household's festive season.
"Both my parents were communists and they told me it was Lenin who came down the chimney" he started, before regaling us with tales of rebelling against being given any more 'crudely carved wooden toys from East Germany' and having to sit through three hours of Russian Swan Lake.
Then there was the Moscow State Circus, whose Cossack horseman, he said, greatly impressed his mum, despite him probably being "a descendant of the man who set fire to her grandmother's village."
All told with a wry affection of course. I'm sure Dickens would approve.