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Alexei Sayle

Liverpool-born funnyman Alexei Sayle is well known in his native England for his distinctly absurd brand of humor, having left his decidedly surreal mark on the worlds of alternative stand-up, television and film. But it was "The Young Ones," a BBC sitcom that debuted in 1982, that first brought Sayle's talents to a wider audience. The program, co-created by and starring comedian Rik Mayall, who knew Sayle through the stand-up circuit, featured loose and unpredictable plotting which allowed Sayle to show off the many characters he'd developed while performing in clubs. During the "The Young One"'s run, Sayle also made a surprisingly sober turn in the dark crime drama "Gorky Park," in which he had a supporting part. After "The Young Ones" ended in 1984, Sayle showed up in various films and TV series, including the long running "Doctor Who," and by 1988, he was performing in and writing his own sketch comedy program, "Stuff." In 1989, he took perhaps his most noteworthy film role as a sultan in Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and continued with "Stuff" until 1991. Three years later, he was back writing and starring in another sketch show, "The All New Alexei Sayle Show," which ended in '95. He later revived the format again, with a new team of writers and actors for 1998's "Merry-Go-Round," which he also helped produce. He continued to work in television as a writer and actor in the 2000s.