Alan Davies' Teenage Revolution

Alan returns to his Essex roots to rediscover his rebellious schoolboy years. The 80s was the decade when youth culture came into its own and Alan guides us through the heroes who defined that rite of passage for him. From brash Americans like tennis star John McEnroe and musicians like Paul Weller, whose raw energy sent shockwaves through suffocating suburbia.

Which Side Are You On?, broadly coincides with Davies' years at university and exposes a country split by political debate and bitterly divided by Thatcher's battle against the miners. He meets some major figures from that time: his past political nemesis and Thatcher's right-hand man, Norman Tebbit, Sir Ian Mckellen, who campaigned vigorously for gay rights and his political hero, Billy Bragg. The final film, ‘Get Up, Stand Up, charts the end of the decade, its legacy and the beginning of Alan's maturity with a budding career in comedy.

Get Up, Stand Up, 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.