Keith Allen: ‘I still make £20k a year from my World Cup song Vindaloo’

Keith Allen, 70, is an actor, writer and TV presenter who found fame in the 1980s with comedy roles and writing.

He co-wrote the World Cup-inspired songs World in Motion by New Order and Vindaloo by Fat Les, and has starred in series such as Robin Hood.

Today he lives near Stroud, Gloucestershire with his partner and daughter.

How did your childhood influence your attitude to money?

I don’t think it did. It was only when I was older that I ever thought about money. My parents were very much of the generation that never divulged their voting habits or how much they earned.

I grew up all over the world. My father was a submariner in the Royal Navy; my mum was a waitress. I spent a lot of my childhood in Malta, then Singapore, a bit in Australia then back in England and Wales.

What was your first job?

My first job was as an apprentice lithographic silk-screen printer. Then I left that and became a roadie with Geno Washington’s Ram Jam Band, then Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, then Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum and Alan Price – all under the age of 15-and-a-half, well 15-and-three-quarters.

I ran away from home. They reported me as a missing person, and then I was in young offenders institutions in need of care and protection. My parents, bless their hearts, spent most of my childhood worrying about where I was.

When I lived with my nan in 1969, for my first job as a hand silk-screen printer I got £3 17 shillings and sixpence [about £50 today] a week and gave my nana £3 for board and lodging, and was left with 17 shillings and sixpence.

Do you remember the moment you knew acting would be your future?

I fell into acting just by a series of events. I’d been to drama college; I left before the end and didn’t intend to become an actor.

I was a hand silk-screen printer. Then I became a stage manager at the ICA [Institute of Contemporary Arts, London] and then The Comedy Store opened. I became a stand-up comic.

Then Channel 4 started and I became a presenter for a Channel 4 TV show. I started writing sketches and met Peter Richardson and we wrote episodes for The Comic Strip Presents…, which I was in, so I was acting by default really.

Stephen Frears, who lived next door but one, offered me to be in the first film ever made for Channel 4. So suddenly I’d become an actor at about 30.

What have been your best and worst financial decisions?

One which was both. When I was doing Robin Hood [BBC drama series, 2006-09] out in Budapest we’d done three series and I was getting paid a hell of a lot.

For once in my life, I was being mature and grown-up and thought I must do something with this money. I knew there were new film studios being built in Budapest because the cost of studio filming in America was very expensive, and that a lot of American movies were slated to be made in Budapest.

So I bought a beautiful penthouse flat in the centre of Budapest near the iron bridge with a view over the River Danube, and poured a load of money into it for big name American actors or directors to stay in. You could rent it out for a hell of a lot of money.

I was sitting pretty; the work was going ahead. They put a new concrete floor in, a new roof on, gutted the inside ready for the interior to be designed. We were all expecting the fourth series to go, which would have been another bucket full of money.

Then they pulled the fourth series and poured all their money into a thing called Merlin. So I was left with this huge shell which wouldn’t have been a problem, except it coincided with the financial institutions collapsing in 2008.

The exchange rate went down the pan and I was left with this property I’d bought and developed that cost me £180,000 which I had to sell at a loss, because I had no money.

Have you ever had trouble paying your bills?

Never. I’ve never been in debt and never had a credit card. Cash rules in my life.

I was talking to a friend of mine, a successful businessman, and he has the same view as me, which is once you’ve spent money it’s gone, that’s it.

For example, if I buy a car for five grand and two years later sell it for three grand, I don’t think I’ve lost two grand, I think I’ve made three grand – I’ve already forgotten the five grand.

That’s always been my relationship with money. I don’t see anything as an investment, really.

Does money make you happy?

That’s an interesting question because I’ve spent a large slice of my life with no money and no savings and it’s never bothered me, because I’ve always done something.

So long as I can put food on the table. My only concern now is I’ve got a mortgage. But even if I’m not acting I can always earn money.

Have you done lucrative TV adverts?

I did one 25 years ago. I was the Listerine tooth fairy and got paid £100,000 [£182,000 today]. Then I never did another one. I spent two days on a harness flying around a studio, although I’ve never seen it.

What is the best thing you’ve ever bought?

I think my ATCO ride-on lawnmower is one of the best things I’ve bought. It’s a very old-fashioned one: you sit on the back of a roller.

It’s not like one of those new Hondas. It’s a beautiful old piece of machinery. I get excited by that kind of thing.

Have you splashed out?

In about 2004 I co-won, with Clive Sinclair, the first ever recorded poker tournament in this country on Challenge TV.

I won £15,000 and had it in a bag, and I went out and bought a Jaguar XJ6 for cash for £5,000. I never usually spend more than £2,000-2,500 on a car anyway. I just got lucky: I’ve never really played poker before.

Has your career been helped or hindered by unlikely sources?

I think my career was hindered by my joyful years in The Groucho Club in London.

Because I was having such a lot of fun, and the club was peopled by the people that were going to employ me at the time, like actors and producers, I think this gibbering idiot wandering around the club pissed wasn’t a particularly good signal to send.

But I’ve been lucky in other instances. I’ve always been in the right place at the right time: like the beginning of Channel 4, the beginning of The Comedy Store and writing two World Cup songs that were both iconic. It’s all just luck, really.

What were you paid for your part in The Comic Strip film Supergrass [in 1985]?

Oh God nothing. You didn’t earn money in those days, probably about £2,000-3,000.

What’s the most you’ve made from TV or film work?

I can’t tell you that. I got paid a lot of money for Robin Hood.

Do you still get royalties for your involvement with football-related records?

Oh God yeah, a lot, probably about £20,000 a year. I mean, I get more money from Vindaloo [1998 UK Number Two by Fat Les] than a lot of things.

I’m always earning money off Vindaloo. The song gets used for all sorts of things and various campaigns.

Guy Pratt played bass on it and he’s earned more money from Vindaloo than anything he’s ever done with Pink Floyd.

Have you ever been ripped off?

Only when buying drugs, but you don’t want to be printing that.

Keith Allen stars in La Cha Cha, on digital platforms March 25 (iTunes, Sky, Amazon, Google)