Alexei Sayle: How I’ve Tried to Change the World

Part of Harrogate Comedy Festival 2026 – proudly sponsored by Vet Dentist

Comedy legend and devoted socialist Alexei Sayle has spent a lifetime trying to solve the world’s problems by walking down the middle of the street, shouting.

A comedy giant, the third-greatest living Liverpudlian and a surprising breakout TikTok interpretative dance superstar, Alexei Sayle has blazed a trail through popular culture for more than forty years. Now he joins us for a unique take on modern history, with a hilarious, polemical, one-of-a-kind take on how he, as a devoted Marxist, has tried to change the world.

Born in 1952 to devoted members of the British Communist Party, Alexei has spent a lifetime walking down the middle of the street shouting. From the demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1969 and the first Miners’ strike in 1974, to the demonstration against the 2003 Iraq invasion and the recent marches in support of Gaza, he will trace the enduring struggle for a better, fairer world.

Along the way, we’ll meet The Other Alexei (a bitter, retired media studies lecturer from Clitheroe Polytechnic), his imaginary daughter Tanita, and learn how a Samurai philosophy called Bushidō can teach us how to behave at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Eye-wateringly funny, unexpectedly moving and unashamedly polemical, this is Alexei Sayle at his defiant best: a story of one man’s refusal to stay on the pavement.