Steven Berkoff

  • Actor and writer

Press clippings

Brighton review

Two middle-aged couples take a profanity-laden daytrip to the city where they met - but who exactly is this film for?

Phil Hoad, The Guardian, 31st May 2021

An evening celebrating the laconic Irish comic begins with this 2014 documentary, which includes fond testimony from family and friends including Steven Berkoff and Dame Maggie Smith. It's followed by last year's biopic Dave Allen at Peace and clip show The Immaculate Selection.

Gwilym Mumford, The Guardian, 30th March 2019

Filming starts on horror comedy film Fanged Up

Filming has begun on new British comedy horror film Fanged Up. The movie focuses on a prison where the guards are vampires.

British Comedy Guide, 25th November 2016

Third series of misadventures for Greg Davies's shambolic teacher. A disciplinary carpeting from the authorities is on the cards due to a simple misjudgment over a wine box and Dan's drama class. The route to avoid being ostracised by Ofsted lies with the school's tempestuously eccentric caretaker (played, in keeping with the show's knack for grabbing big names, by Steven Berkoff). What could possibly go wrong? Regular viewers of Man Down might well guess.

Mark Gibbings-Jones, The Guardian, 13th July 2016

TV preview: Man Down, C4

Good to see Greg Davies back as helpless, hapless, hopeless giant man-child teacher Dan. There are some nice new treats in the supporting cast too, but they have to have pretty big personalities to stand a chance of competing with Davies. Luckily they are.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 11th July 2016

Steven Berkoff and Mark Hamill join Man Down Series 3

Star Wars legend Mark Hamill, movie star Steven Berkoff, and comedian Isy Suttie all join the cast of Man Down Series 3.

British Comedy Guide, 21st June 2016

In '73 Dave Allen was at the top of his game as TV's most controversial comedian. 
"He just sat there, beautifully Irish, and told the most outrageous jokes," said Steven Berkoff in Dave Allen: God's Own ­Comedian. My mother, who fancied him, would ­second that. From the gen­eration of comics inspired by him, Kevin Day said: "As a kid I didn't understand his jokes but I really enjoyed seeing my parents laugh at them." I'd second that; just Allen in his chair was exciting. Look, he's drinking whisky! Now he's brushing fag-ash from his sleeves as casually as he'd attack organised religion! But what hap­pened to the top half of that ­finger?...

This was a fine tribute to the master of the quiet, laid-back, furious monologue who died in 2005 and is rarely reshown, though this was his doing. 
I knew nothing of his early shows and their ridiculous stunts, so footage of Allen in 
a submerged car was almost 
as thrilling as him in his 
chair.

There was an amazing postscript to that one, with a Glasgow family regularly writing him their grateful thanks. An outing to Ayr almost ended in tragedy when their car slipped into the sea. The boy trapped inside calmly waited until it filled with water before opening the door, just like he'd seen Allen do.

Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 5th May 2013

The biggest TV stand-up of the 1970s gets a proper appraisal in this very well put together documentary. His laconic, no-frills style is revisited and analysed but the meat of the programme is in telling the story of his life and the little stories behind his instantly recognisable, enormously popular performance tics. Great clips, many of them rarely seen, are bolstered by contributors from Allen's family and celebrities including Stephen Frears, Maggie Smith and Steven Berkoff.

Jack Seale, Radio Times, 30th April 2013

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