As he publishes a moving memoir, the comedian and Bake Off contestant tormentor talks about homophobic heckles, still living with his parents – and why he’s never been in love
In a deserted office overlooking the Thames, Tom Allen is admiring the view. “They’re building some sort of sewage works down there,” he says brightly, gesturing at the churning machinery below. “How very Les Mis. Do enjoy!” Always dapper, the smooth-headed, neatly bearded standup comedian and panel-show regular is dressed today in a blue double-breasted flannel suit. “And look, this turns out to be a fox,” he gasps, whipping open his patterned pocket square to reveal its animal motif with all the élan of a magician performing a conjuring trick.
Allen was born spiffy in the suburbs of south London. “I used to dress as some kind of millionaire yacht owner, when in fact I was a small child from Bromley,” he says. Evidence that he was different could be found far beyond his wardrobe, as he explains in No Shame, a new memoir that proves him to be an astute observer of class. “I often lay the sense that I was an outsider at the feet of being gay,” he says. “But in truth, it was as much about being an eccentric. I couldn’t fight it so I thought I’d go all the way instead.”
