Get Up, Stand Up

The final episode in the series charts the end of the 1980s, its legacy and the beginning of Alan's comedy career. Alan tracks down some of the inspirational figures who for him defined the era, from Rory Bremner to Neil Kinnock. In 1988, after four years of studying drama at university, Alan joined the ranks of the unemployed. He traces the beginnings of his desire to perform on stage, and how this eventually propelled him to climb the slippery slope of stand-up comedy. But not the old style comedy of racist, sexist, homophobic gags. In the 1980s, it sometimes seemed as if comedy, theatre and TV drama were the only opposition that Mrs Thatcher was unable to defeat. She may have had them all in her sights, but the Poll Tax demonstration at the close of the decade hastened the end of her political career, and Alan was there to see it.