"His features resembled a fossilised wash rag."
- Alan Brien (about Steve McQueen).

Alan Brien
Well, I forget the rest by Quentin Crewe
Hutchinson, 278 pp, £17.99, September 1991, ISBN 0 09 174835 6
Many is the time I have hauled Quentin Crewe into a restaurant on my back, his wrists crossed under my chin, his voice chattering into one ear or another. As I did so, I often caught a surreal glimpse of myself as some kind of hunter of human game, bearing to the cannibal feast one more main course still alive and thrashing. ‘Q’, I am happy to say, is still alive and stirring things up – not least in this quirky and curious autobiography.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Paul Vaughan will be writing an entry on Alan for the next publication of the DNB. If anybody has anything to add do please post it here.

from Alexei Sayle's website

Mother Nature wasn't too kind to our hero as time went by - and Alexei went totally bald and grew a beard - looking more like famous Observer columnist Alan Brien than the cutting-edge comedy giant he once was. And sadly, he was no longer able to fit into his trademark mohair suit.

The Guardian Women's Page

Harold Nicholson

There was a photograph of Nicholson at Long Crichel House and I remember Alan saying he was one of the best looking men of his generation.

From Joyce, on Alan, after her 90th birthday

"So different to most people. Nicer than most men. My little brother."