Dave Allen, the Irish comedian renowned for his relaxed story-telling style with cigarette in hand and whiskey tumbler at his side, has died in his sleep. He was 68.
His agent Vivienne Clore confirmed that he had died at home unexpectedly. He had been unwell over Christmas but had recovered, and was not suffering from any life-threatening illnesses.
"It was very sudden," said Ms Clore, who had worked with Allen for 27 years.
"He was just a lovely, lovely man. He was absolutely the same in real life as he was on the television. You always felt that he had made a special effort to know everything about you, and to converse with you on a personal level, which is a fairly rare thing."
Born David Tynan O'Mahoney on July 6, 1936, in Tallaght, Dublin, the son of a famous Irish journalist, Allen grew up in the tradition of devout, hellfire Catholicism that he later mocked in his profane jokes and sketches.
After a stint as a copy boy on the Drogheda Argus he came to London at the age of 19 to try his luck in Fleet Street. Failing to make an impression, he got a job as a redcoat in a Butlins holiday camp, and developed a comedy routine while doing cabaret for the holidaymakers.
His first television appearance was on the BBC talent show New Faces in 1959, and in 1961 he toured his stand-up routine around England and France with a then unknown band called The Beatles. In between engagements he sold draught-excluders to make ends meet.
It was not until a tour of Australia in 1963, however, that he got his big break. He was offered an eight-week television show called Tonight with Dave Allen, which proved so popular that its run was extended to 18 months.
The British version of Tonight with Dave Allen first went out in 1968, and quickly won a following for its warm wit. This was followed by Dave Allen at Large, his hit BBC2 show which ran from 1971 to 1981 and made him a household name.
The show pioneered his distinctive mix of sketches and straight-to-camera monologues, and introduced his trademark habit of sitting down to tell jokes with a drink in hand, as if he was esconced in a bar and the television audience were his fellow drinkers. Such was his professionalism, the amber-coloured fluid in the glass was in fact ginger ale.
His show also won a reputation for being controversial, with its frequent pops at the odd behaviour of priests and congregations, faintly bawdy sketches, and Allen's lapses into bad language.
Paul Jackson, the chief executive of Granada America who worked on many of Allen's shows and was a friend of the comedian, said that questions were asked in Parliament about Allen's use of the word "f***ing" in one of his most famous jokes.
"We spend our lives on the run. We get up by the clock, go to work by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A f***ing clock!" Allen ranted.
Mr Jackson said: "In the early days when saying 'f***' was a big thing it caused more furore than anyone expected. It was just a brilliant joke. Dave said the line and refused to have it removed. He dug his heels in. It was talked about in Parliament. It all turned out to be a storm in a tea cup, people got agitated but life goes on.
"But he was about much more than that, he was just such a brilliant observer of life's frustrations. He was angry about life. He was a wonderful storyteller, but he also gave you a slice of 20th Century angst about the stupid things in life, the frustrations of parking meters, the ludicrousness of the 12-hour clock. He said it for you. He was completely unique.
"The alternative comedians that I made my career with (The Young Ones) all revered him because he broke the rules. He never accepted the given structures."
Riding his reputation, Allen tried his hand at stage acting, appearing in the Royal Court production of Edna O'Brien's play A Pagan Place, and as Captain Hook in Peter Pan.
Health scares eventually forced him to give up the cigarettes and to cut down on his off-stage drinking, although the whiskey glass stayed at his elbow through the 1980s in his show Dave Allen, which ran until 1991.
In 1993 he went over to ITV, where he starred in that station's version of Dave Allen - his final regular television series. Recently he had been content to let his career slow down, although he still had projects on the go, said Ms Clore.
"He had lots of people asking him to do stuff, and in a very Dave way he would sit on them and think about them for ages, and eventually come back and say that he was turning them down.
"But he wasn't in semi-retirement, he would have hated to hear anyone suggest that. I telephoned him only yesterday to nag him about coming back to me on various projects, but I only got his answerphone."
Leading lights in the world of comedy and light entertainment also paid tribute to Allen. Eddie Izzard said: "He was an original. He carved his own path.
"I think he was the first alternative stand-up to have his own show on TV and he was a torchbearer for all the excellent Irish comics who have followed in recent years.
"I’m glad that his material has just been released on DVD as it can now be added to the British/Irish library of comedy greats."
Dylan Moran said: "He could dismiss several schools of philosophy by shifting slightly in his chair or toting his whisky glass.
"When he adjusted his waistcoat or shot his cuffs, dragons of unreason gasped and died at his feet. Who was funnier, or more loveable?
"He was the uncle to end all uncles, childlike yet oracular and possessed of a ravenous appetite for human folly."
Jimmy Tarbuck said that Allen’s death was an "immense loss". He said he produced "a brand of irreverent comedy that was totally his own - it was wonderful.
"It is an immense loss of a great comedian but more importantly a good friend."
Dave Allen on himself:
A man came up to me and asked: "Are you the Irish comedian with half a finger?"
No, I'm the Irish comedian with nine and a half fingers!
On the Irish troubles:
Which is the fastest game in the world? It's played in Belfast pubs, and it's called Pass the Parcel.
His sign-off:
Good night, and may your god go with you.
