DAVE ALLEN was for a long time the coolest comedian to appear on television. He was urbane, irreverent, a great storyteller, with a sharp eye for the follies of religion and of those in power.

As he said in 1998: “The hierarchy of everything in my life has always bothered me. I’m bothered by power. People, whoever they might be, whether it’s the government, or the policeman in the uniform, or the man on the door – they still irk me a bit. From school, from the first nun that belted me.”

In 1980, he brought his one-man show to Glasgow’s King’s Theatre, and was greeted by fans when he sat outside the theatre to publicise the show. “Religion is just a label,” he said. “We can call it Catholic or Protestant, or Methodist or Muslim, but when it comes down to it, the names are just labels, which unfortunately become armies.

We want to forget the labels and get together.”

He said his show would not be based on Glasgow humour. “I think it would be patronising if I were to localise my humor by finding out the local councillor in the news.

I would also be a fraud.”