Alex (comic strip)
Encyclopedia
Alex is a British
cartoon strip by Charles Peattie
and Russell Taylor
. It first appeared in the short-lived London Daily News
in 1987. It moved to The Independent
later that year and then to the Daily Telegraph in 1992.
The strip with its storylines-with-a-twist proved so popular that, in the course of its transfer to the Telegraph, it was preceded by a nationwide billboard
campaign.
The strip occurs in 'real-time', i.e. time passes and characters age and develop as in real life. Alex and Penny married in the strip's early days and had a son called Christopher, who grew up, went to school, had work experience and has now started college. Alex and Penny themselves are now middle-aged.
In a 2008 interview with Phill Jupitus
for BBC Radio 4, Peattie and Taylor said that they use Wikipedia
to keep track of information about the characters in the strip.
and twist endings related to Alex's world of yuppie
values, right-wing politics, obsession with appearances, displays of wealth and schemes to stay one up in the world of international finance.
Peattie and Taylor are reputed to work closely with a variety of London financial contacts to ensure that their strips accurately reflect the recent scandals and rumours which pass around the City. Much gossip has circulated as to the likely inspiration for some of the characters. A storyline in March 2009 had one of Alex' old colleagues leave the city to become a teacher, coinciding with a British government plan to ease the amount of time spent on teacher training and encouraging "fantastic mathematicians... who would have once perhaps gone into the City but now actually might be more interested in a career in teaching".
The most common kind of joke features a conversation between the characters, where in the final frame a twist ending becomes apparent - the context of the conversation was not what the reader had supposed, usually reflecting on the protagonists' materialistic values and priorities.
For instance, in a restaurant, an embarrassed Alex apologises to the maître d' after his dinner guest answers a call on his mobile, which has been frowned upon in the past. The maître d's claim that the restaurant's policy on phones is very relaxed these days does not alleviate Alex's embarrassment since his concern was due to being seen with a companion who was not using the latest model
, and not (as the reader may have supposed) due to talking on a cellphone in a restaurant.
Another kind of strip which appears occasionally consists of only two large frames, showing two different characters, or the same character in two different situations, giving a monologue
composed of almost exactly the same words, but which, in the different situations, have very different meanings.
The strip has sometimes taken on storylines which feature fantasy characters and situations. These storylines are usually published at Christmas
time. In 2000, for example, Alex's colleague Clive made a pact with the Devil and found himself working in Investment Bank Hell. In December 2005, they visited Narnia (coinciding with the recently released film
) and met imaginary characters such as the headhunter
Alex always claimed to be meeting when trying to get a big bonus from his boss, or a girlfriend Clive claimed to have had at university. In 2006 they went to Lapland where they bought up Father Christmas
' business, outsourcing the toy-making department away from the elves and over to Asia where Hindus and Buddhists would not be paid extra for working over the Christmas holidays. However it turns out that Alex had dreamed this whole scenario up after he had fallen asleep whilst watching England's disastrous handling of the 2006-07 Ashes
cricket
series. At Christmas 2007 Alex and Clive visited a Philip Pullman
universe, where they met giant marauding bears and correctly predicted that this was what the stock market held in store for 2008. The 2008 festive season saw Alex and Clive being tortured by a mob of medieval peasants for usury
. At Yuletide 2009 Alex and Clive revisited their ex-client Santa Claus
, whose business has now gone bust as a result of the inappropriate and self-serving advice they gave him back in 2006.
The complexities of the jokes has meant that the strip has often had to take time off (i.e., not appear for two or more weeks) while the writers come up with new material.
and a 3G
mobile phone. For him, the most important thing is displaying your wealth to all and sundry. Alex usually works for Rupert Sterling at Megabank, but has, in the past, worked for Mr Hardcastle as his Head of Corporate Strategy.
Penny Masterley is Alex's long-suffering wife. They married very early in the strip's history, and have one son, Christopher. Penny enjoys the affluent lifestyle that Alex provides, but has little patience for Alex's obsessions with status and his work. The two spend very little time together, and are not very close. Alex has cheated on Penny a number of times, including a protracted affair with his secretary, Wendy, in 1991, and a one-night stand
with a co-worker while travelling on business in 1998. In 2006 Alex started an affair with a client, Carolyn, which is currently continuing. Penny came very close to divorcing Alex after the affair with his secretary, and has considered leaving him on other occasions. In the summer of 2009 Penny went out to work (for the first time ever) as a redundancy counsellor: a move that upset Alex as he worried that having a working wife might draw people to conclude that he had himself lost his job.
Christopher Masterley is Alex's teenage son. Christopher was born in 1989 and has grown normally over the years. Christopher is very much his father's son, and shares his concern for status and his nose for business. Alex mostly sees Christopher as a symbol of his success, and often makes him a victim of his quest for status. Though initially educated at a top Public School, Christopher was withdrawn during the city slump in 2004, when Alex was out of work, and faced the humiliation of leaving the school with a black plastic bag containing his things, a fate city stockbrokers often face, and which was set up by his own father. In 2009 Christopher went to college to study art, much to Alex's chagrin.
Clive Reed is Alex's co-worker, and even Alex's boss from June 2004 to October 2005 (afterwards he got side-lined by Rupert but refused to resign, thus forced to accept a demotion). He lives with his girlfriend Bridget. Clive is Alex's inferior in every way. He is less socially skilled, and frequently commits embarrassing gaffes in public. He is less professionally skilled, and often makes bad financial investments or fails to manage his subordinates. Alex enjoys Clive's company because it provides many opportunities to show his superiority. Clive is also a dreadful wimp, and readily retreats from any situation of conflict or difficulty. In spite of this, Clive is something of a womaniser, and has enjoyed a moderate amount of success. In particular, Clive had a long and guilt-ridden affair with Ruth while he was engaged to Bridget. Clive also had a son to Ruth, but they were soon faded out of the strip. Clive also enjoys just enough professional success to maintain his career and his affluent lifestyle. In August 2008 Clive was made redundant, a fact Alex knew but used to win a bet. However, he soon returned after it emerged that the bank had fired the wrong Clive Reed.
Bridget Reed is Clive's live-in girlfriend. There have been times in the strip where Clive referred to Bridget as his wife, but the 29 February 2000 strip makes it clear that they are not married as of then. Although Bridget is in a similar situation to Penny, she has even less patience with her husband, and a much more sadistic temperament. She takes delight in any opportunity to expose Clive for the wimp and loser that he is. This, together with the affluent lifestyle that Clive somehow manages to provide, seems to be her main reasons for staying with him.
Rupert Sterling was for many years Alex and Clive's boss and is now a senior director at Megabank. He and Alex are on the same wavelength as regards status and appearances. This has not stopped Rupert from sacking Alex on a number of occasions, though never for long. Rupert was once tried and jailed for financial fraud; this did not affect his life style too much: his wife would arrive on visiting day only to be told that her husband was in a meeting.
Greg Masterley is Alex's brother and a reporter. Unlike his sibling, Greg tends to be rather stingy when it comes to money: Greg will use a foreign coin in order to jam a pavement parking meter and thus park his car for next to nothing, whereas Alex would probably fail to pay the meter in order to show that he can afford the fine.
Mr Hardcastle is the stereotypical Northern boss of a manufacturing company. Hardcastle employs Megabank for a lot of his financial work. Bluff and down-to-earth, it is surprising that he puts up with Alex's expensive and flash City ways. Alex worked for him during the City slump in around 2002, though he found every excuse from getting away from Hardcastle's northern-based offices to enjoy the pleasures of London and Ascot
.
Vince is a Money Broker
from the dealing floor at Megabank. Representing the 'East End Barrow boy' type, Vince wears white socks, talks in cockney rhyming slang
("flute" = suit, "jam jar" = car) and is ignorant of the finer points of culture and etiquette at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera that Alex and Clive revel in.
Christian is a European junior working his way through the ranks. Sophisticated, from a rich French family, he disdains the 'Anglo' culture and in return is often the butt of Alex's jokes. He speaks a number of languages which the other staff find rather frustrating, especially when he and another foreign worker
speak out openly — in English rather than French or Spanish about how badly the English cricket team is doing.
Jane was Alex's head of department in 1996. A decisive and masterful figure, he was in awe of her the moment they first met. She herself had an apparently genuine passion for Alex and they had a brief affair. This ended when she had to resign for undisclosed reasons "after a full and frank discussion with the board". Her last act was to send a late night email to all her staff thanking them for showing her "kindness, warmth, respect, personal support, encouragement, loyalty, hospitality and friendship", concluding that all of this was now completely wasted since someone else would be determining their bonuses.
Ruth was Clive's American lover, not seen much lately. An expatriate investment banker & frequent character in early years, she would appear in strips in which she and her female colleagues would complain about the treatment of women in the City
Wendy Tanner was Alex's secretary and had an affair with him. When his wife Penny found out they almost divorced, but later made up. Alex decided that there was no future with Wendy and felt it unwise to continue any longer since her probationary period was due to end and it is hard to sack clerical staff once they become full time.
Cyrus is Alex's God-fearing American head of department who arrived on the scene in 2006, soon after the Megabank merger and the apparent promotion of Rupert to senior banker status. Cyrus is an unabashed workaholic who bows his head during Thanksgiving dinner grace in order to use his Blackberry for work.
Carolyn is Alex's client and mistress, with whom he has been secretly involved. She's herself married, and her husband once challenged Alex in a boxing match after he found out their affair.
Faberge is a lapdancer that Clive meets regularly outside work. Clive cannot believe that's not her real name.
Robin Thorne was a graduate trainee who was employed at Megabank at the time of the dot-com bubble
. Being of a new generation, his knowledge and use of the internet made him quite a contrast to Alex. The differences between two generations could be quite big with one having to painstakingly explain to the other how everything worked and being frustrated when they seemed unable to grasp basic essentials: like Robin using the internet to order sandwiches and get Alex's drycleaning done without having to do it himself and denying Alex the pleasure of demeaning him in the process. When the dot-com bubble burst, Alex finally got the opportunity to assign such tasks to Robin, who eventually left the bank. Alex was later asked to contact the head of a start-up hedge fund
who, instead of being wined and dined, would be quite satisfied with sandwiches in his office: the potential client was Robin, who sent Alex out to get the sandwiches. As a result of the credit crunch, Robin's business went bust in early 2009 and he called on Alex for a possible job back at Megabank. Since they had done a lot of business with the hedge fund Alex felt that it was only fair to grant him an interview, give him 30 seconds to give his best three investment ideas and then leave — Alex getting pleasure by treating Robin the way he had treated him. To make ends meet, Robin later turned his home into a bed and breakfast
, and ended up serving meals to Alex again.
Justin is a banker who successfully stood as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the 2010 UK General Election. He claimed his motivation for wishing to enter politics was his disgust at the recent United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
, but then revealed that he had funded his campaign via various bogus claims on his expense account at the bank.
...plus a cast of match sellers, policemen, and all the characters one would expect to find in a cosmopolitan world financial centre.
, London
in October, 2007. Robert Bathurst
portrayed the titular character in a one-man act assisted by animated cartoon
s of the other characters and the various locations. Bathurst took Alex on an international tour, beginning in Melbourne
, Australia
in September 2008 and concluding in London in December. During the tour, it was announced that Bathurst would reprise the role of Alex in a film adaptation that was being developed by independent production company BreakThru Films. The film is to be a live-action/animation hybrid. Since the initial announcement, no further information has been published.
. In May 2011 the show won a Sony Award for Best Branded Content.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
cartoon strip by Charles Peattie
Charles Peattie
Charles Peattie is a British cartoonist, best known as half of the team that creates the comic strip Alex. He has two daughters and two sons...
and Russell Taylor
Russell Taylor
Russell Taylor MBE is a British writer, journalist and composer. He is best known as half of the team that created the comic strip Alex. He studied at St Anne's College, Oxford...
. It first appeared in the short-lived London Daily News
London Daily News
The London Daily News was a short-lived London newspaper owned by Robert Maxwell.-1987:The London Daily News was published from 24 February to 24 July 1987. It was intended to be a "24-hour" paper challenging the local dominance of the Evening Standard."For the city that never sleeps, the paper...
in 1987. It moved to The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
later that year and then to the Daily Telegraph in 1992.
The strip with its storylines-with-a-twist proved so popular that, in the course of its transfer to the Telegraph, it was preceded by a nationwide billboard
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...
campaign.
The strip occurs in 'real-time', i.e. time passes and characters age and develop as in real life. Alex and Penny married in the strip's early days and had a son called Christopher, who grew up, went to school, had work experience and has now started college. Alex and Penny themselves are now middle-aged.
In a 2008 interview with Phill Jupitus
Phill Jupitus
Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....
for BBC Radio 4, Peattie and Taylor said that they use Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
to keep track of information about the characters in the strip.
Style and humour
The humour in the strip derives from wordplayWord play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
and twist endings related to Alex's world of yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
values, right-wing politics, obsession with appearances, displays of wealth and schemes to stay one up in the world of international finance.
Peattie and Taylor are reputed to work closely with a variety of London financial contacts to ensure that their strips accurately reflect the recent scandals and rumours which pass around the City. Much gossip has circulated as to the likely inspiration for some of the characters. A storyline in March 2009 had one of Alex' old colleagues leave the city to become a teacher, coinciding with a British government plan to ease the amount of time spent on teacher training and encouraging "fantastic mathematicians... who would have once perhaps gone into the City but now actually might be more interested in a career in teaching".
The most common kind of joke features a conversation between the characters, where in the final frame a twist ending becomes apparent - the context of the conversation was not what the reader had supposed, usually reflecting on the protagonists' materialistic values and priorities.
For instance, in a restaurant, an embarrassed Alex apologises to the maître d' after his dinner guest answers a call on his mobile, which has been frowned upon in the past. The maître d's claim that the restaurant's policy on phones is very relaxed these days does not alleviate Alex's embarrassment since his concern was due to being seen with a companion who was not using the latest model
State of the art
The state of the art is the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field, achieved at a particular time. It also refers to the level of development reached at any particular time as a result of the latest methodologies employed.- Origin :The earliest use of the term...
, and not (as the reader may have supposed) due to talking on a cellphone in a restaurant.
Another kind of strip which appears occasionally consists of only two large frames, showing two different characters, or the same character in two different situations, giving a monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
composed of almost exactly the same words, but which, in the different situations, have very different meanings.
The strip has sometimes taken on storylines which feature fantasy characters and situations. These storylines are usually published at Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
time. In 2000, for example, Alex's colleague Clive made a pact with the Devil and found himself working in Investment Bank Hell. In December 2005, they visited Narnia (coinciding with the recently released film
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a 2005 epic fantasy adventure film directed by Andrew Adamson and based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published and second chronological novel in C. S. Lewis's children's epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of...
) and met imaginary characters such as the headhunter
Executive search
Executive search is the consultative process of recruiting individuals to fill senior executive positions in organizations. Executive search may be performed by an organization's board of directors, or by an outside executive search organization....
Alex always claimed to be meeting when trying to get a big bonus from his boss, or a girlfriend Clive claimed to have had at university. In 2006 they went to Lapland where they bought up Father Christmas
Father Christmas
Father Christmas is the name used in many English-speaking countries for a figure associated with Christmas. A similar figure with the same name exists in several other countries, including France , Spain , Brazil , Portugal , Italy , Armenia , India...
' business, outsourcing the toy-making department away from the elves and over to Asia where Hindus and Buddhists would not be paid extra for working over the Christmas holidays. However it turns out that Alex had dreamed this whole scenario up after he had fallen asleep whilst watching England's disastrous handling of the 2006-07 Ashes
2006-07 Ashes series
The 2006–07 cricket series between Australia and England for the Ashes was played in Australia from 23 November 2006 to 5 January 2007. Australia won the series and regained the Ashes that had been lost to England in the 2005 Ashes series...
cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
series. At Christmas 2007 Alex and Clive visited a Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL is an English writer from Norwich. He is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and his fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ...
universe, where they met giant marauding bears and correctly predicted that this was what the stock market held in store for 2008. The 2008 festive season saw Alex and Clive being tortured by a mob of medieval peasants for usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
. At Yuletide 2009 Alex and Clive revisited their ex-client Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
, whose business has now gone bust as a result of the inappropriate and self-serving advice they gave him back in 2006.
The complexities of the jokes has meant that the strip has often had to take time off (i.e., not appear for two or more weeks) while the writers come up with new material.
List of characters
Alex Masterley (born 24 February 1960) is the protagonist of the comic strip. He is an experienced investment banker working in London's Docklands. Alex is totally obsessed with personal status, with his work coming second and his family a distant third. His commitment to status requires him to have all of the latest professional gadgets, including a BlackBerryBlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
and a 3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
mobile phone. For him, the most important thing is displaying your wealth to all and sundry. Alex usually works for Rupert Sterling at Megabank, but has, in the past, worked for Mr Hardcastle as his Head of Corporate Strategy.
Penny Masterley is Alex's long-suffering wife. They married very early in the strip's history, and have one son, Christopher. Penny enjoys the affluent lifestyle that Alex provides, but has little patience for Alex's obsessions with status and his work. The two spend very little time together, and are not very close. Alex has cheated on Penny a number of times, including a protracted affair with his secretary, Wendy, in 1991, and a one-night stand
One-night stand
Originally, a one-night stand was a single theatre performance, usually by a guest performer on tour, as opposed to an ongoing engagement. Today, however, the term is more commonly defined as a single sexual encounter, in which neither participant has any intention or expectation of a relationship...
with a co-worker while travelling on business in 1998. In 2006 Alex started an affair with a client, Carolyn, which is currently continuing. Penny came very close to divorcing Alex after the affair with his secretary, and has considered leaving him on other occasions. In the summer of 2009 Penny went out to work (for the first time ever) as a redundancy counsellor: a move that upset Alex as he worried that having a working wife might draw people to conclude that he had himself lost his job.
Christopher Masterley is Alex's teenage son. Christopher was born in 1989 and has grown normally over the years. Christopher is very much his father's son, and shares his concern for status and his nose for business. Alex mostly sees Christopher as a symbol of his success, and often makes him a victim of his quest for status. Though initially educated at a top Public School, Christopher was withdrawn during the city slump in 2004, when Alex was out of work, and faced the humiliation of leaving the school with a black plastic bag containing his things, a fate city stockbrokers often face, and which was set up by his own father. In 2009 Christopher went to college to study art, much to Alex's chagrin.
Clive Reed is Alex's co-worker, and even Alex's boss from June 2004 to October 2005 (afterwards he got side-lined by Rupert but refused to resign, thus forced to accept a demotion). He lives with his girlfriend Bridget. Clive is Alex's inferior in every way. He is less socially skilled, and frequently commits embarrassing gaffes in public. He is less professionally skilled, and often makes bad financial investments or fails to manage his subordinates. Alex enjoys Clive's company because it provides many opportunities to show his superiority. Clive is also a dreadful wimp, and readily retreats from any situation of conflict or difficulty. In spite of this, Clive is something of a womaniser, and has enjoyed a moderate amount of success. In particular, Clive had a long and guilt-ridden affair with Ruth while he was engaged to Bridget. Clive also had a son to Ruth, but they were soon faded out of the strip. Clive also enjoys just enough professional success to maintain his career and his affluent lifestyle. In August 2008 Clive was made redundant, a fact Alex knew but used to win a bet. However, he soon returned after it emerged that the bank had fired the wrong Clive Reed.
Bridget Reed is Clive's live-in girlfriend. There have been times in the strip where Clive referred to Bridget as his wife, but the 29 February 2000 strip makes it clear that they are not married as of then. Although Bridget is in a similar situation to Penny, she has even less patience with her husband, and a much more sadistic temperament. She takes delight in any opportunity to expose Clive for the wimp and loser that he is. This, together with the affluent lifestyle that Clive somehow manages to provide, seems to be her main reasons for staying with him.
Rupert Sterling was for many years Alex and Clive's boss and is now a senior director at Megabank. He and Alex are on the same wavelength as regards status and appearances. This has not stopped Rupert from sacking Alex on a number of occasions, though never for long. Rupert was once tried and jailed for financial fraud; this did not affect his life style too much: his wife would arrive on visiting day only to be told that her husband was in a meeting.
Greg Masterley is Alex's brother and a reporter. Unlike his sibling, Greg tends to be rather stingy when it comes to money: Greg will use a foreign coin in order to jam a pavement parking meter and thus park his car for next to nothing, whereas Alex would probably fail to pay the meter in order to show that he can afford the fine.
Mr Hardcastle is the stereotypical Northern boss of a manufacturing company. Hardcastle employs Megabank for a lot of his financial work. Bluff and down-to-earth, it is surprising that he puts up with Alex's expensive and flash City ways. Alex worked for him during the City slump in around 2002, though he found every excuse from getting away from Hardcastle's northern-based offices to enjoy the pleasures of London and Ascot
Ascot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races...
.
Vince is a Money Broker
Broker
A broker is a party that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller, and gets a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal...
from the dealing floor at Megabank. Representing the 'East End Barrow boy' type, Vince wears white socks, talks in cockney rhyming slang
Cockney rhyming slang
Rhyming slang is a form of phrase construction in the English language and is especially prevalent in dialectal British English from the East End of London; hence the alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang...
("flute" = suit, "jam jar" = car) and is ignorant of the finer points of culture and etiquette at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera that Alex and Clive revel in.
Christian is a European junior working his way through the ranks. Sophisticated, from a rich French family, he disdains the 'Anglo' culture and in return is often the butt of Alex's jokes. He speaks a number of languages which the other staff find rather frustrating, especially when he and another foreign worker
Foreign worker
A foreign worker is a person who works in a country other than the one of which he or she is a citizen. The term migrant worker as discussed in the migrant worker page is used in a particular UN resolution as a synonym for "foreign worker"...
speak out openly — in English rather than French or Spanish about how badly the English cricket team is doing.
Jane was Alex's head of department in 1996. A decisive and masterful figure, he was in awe of her the moment they first met. She herself had an apparently genuine passion for Alex and they had a brief affair. This ended when she had to resign for undisclosed reasons "after a full and frank discussion with the board". Her last act was to send a late night email to all her staff thanking them for showing her "kindness, warmth, respect, personal support, encouragement, loyalty, hospitality and friendship", concluding that all of this was now completely wasted since someone else would be determining their bonuses.
Ruth was Clive's American lover, not seen much lately. An expatriate investment banker & frequent character in early years, she would appear in strips in which she and her female colleagues would complain about the treatment of women in the City
Wendy Tanner was Alex's secretary and had an affair with him. When his wife Penny found out they almost divorced, but later made up. Alex decided that there was no future with Wendy and felt it unwise to continue any longer since her probationary period was due to end and it is hard to sack clerical staff once they become full time.
Cyrus is Alex's God-fearing American head of department who arrived on the scene in 2006, soon after the Megabank merger and the apparent promotion of Rupert to senior banker status. Cyrus is an unabashed workaholic who bows his head during Thanksgiving dinner grace in order to use his Blackberry for work.
Carolyn is Alex's client and mistress, with whom he has been secretly involved. She's herself married, and her husband once challenged Alex in a boxing match after he found out their affair.
Faberge is a lapdancer that Clive meets regularly outside work. Clive cannot believe that's not her real name.
Robin Thorne was a graduate trainee who was employed at Megabank at the time of the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. Being of a new generation, his knowledge and use of the internet made him quite a contrast to Alex. The differences between two generations could be quite big with one having to painstakingly explain to the other how everything worked and being frustrated when they seemed unable to grasp basic essentials: like Robin using the internet to order sandwiches and get Alex's drycleaning done without having to do it himself and denying Alex the pleasure of demeaning him in the process. When the dot-com bubble burst, Alex finally got the opportunity to assign such tasks to Robin, who eventually left the bank. Alex was later asked to contact the head of a start-up hedge fund
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
who, instead of being wined and dined, would be quite satisfied with sandwiches in his office: the potential client was Robin, who sent Alex out to get the sandwiches. As a result of the credit crunch, Robin's business went bust in early 2009 and he called on Alex for a possible job back at Megabank. Since they had done a lot of business with the hedge fund Alex felt that it was only fair to grant him an interview, give him 30 seconds to give his best three investment ideas and then leave — Alex getting pleasure by treating Robin the way he had treated him. To make ends meet, Robin later turned his home into a bed and breakfast
Bed and breakfast
A bed and breakfast is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast, but usually does not offer other meals. Since the 1980s, the meaning of the term has also extended to include accommodations that are also known as "self-catering" establishments...
, and ended up serving meals to Alex again.
Justin is a banker who successfully stood as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the 2010 UK General Election. He claimed his motivation for wishing to enter politics was his disgust at the recent United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal triggered by the leak and subsequent publication by the Telegraph Group in 2009 of expense claims made by members of the United Kingdom Parliament over several years...
, but then revealed that he had funded his campaign via various bogus claims on his expense account at the bank.
...plus a cast of match sellers, policemen, and all the characters one would expect to find in a cosmopolitan world financial centre.
Books
Alex cartoons are collected into annual volumes.- Alex (1987)
- The Unabashed Alex (1988)
- Alex II: Magnum Force (1989)
- Alex III: Son Of Alex (1990)
- Alex IV: The Man With The Golden Handshake (1991)
- Alex V: For The Love Of Alex (1992)
- Alex Calls The Shots (1993)
- Alex Plays The Game (1994)
- Alex Knows The Score (1995)
- Alex Sweeps The Board (1996)
- Alex Feels The Pinch (1997)
- The Full Alex Omnibus (collects strips from 1987 to 1998)
- The Best Of Alex 1998-2001
- The Best Of Alex 2002
- The Best Of Alex 2003
- The Best Of Alex 2004
- The Best Of Alex 2005
- The Best Of Alex 2006
- The Best of Alex 2007
- The Best of Alex 2008
- The Best of Alex 2009
- The Best of Alex 2010
Stage play
Alex was turned into a stage play by Peattie and Taylor and was performed at the Arts TheatreArts Theatre
The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It now operates as the West End's smallest commercial receiving house.-History:...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in October, 2007. Robert Bathurst
Robert Bathurst
Robert Guy Bathurst is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school...
portrayed the titular character in a one-man act assisted by animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
s of the other characters and the various locations. Bathurst took Alex on an international tour, beginning in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in September 2008 and concluding in London in December. During the tour, it was announced that Bathurst would reprise the role of Alex in a film adaptation that was being developed by independent production company BreakThru Films. The film is to be a live-action/animation hybrid. Since the initial announcement, no further information has been published.
Radio adaptation
Bathurst reprised the role in 2010 in a radio version of Alex, broadcast in ten weekly episodes on Classic FMClassic FM
Classic FM may refer to:*Classic FM , a British classical music radio station**Classic FM TV, a British classical music television channel*ABC Classic FM, an Australian classical music radio station run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
. In May 2011 the show won a Sony Award for Best Branded Content.