The Big Interview: Alan Davies

Many people will recognise him as the detective-cum-magician in the Bafta-winning BBC drama, Jonathan Creek, while for others he’s synonymous with the much-loved quiz show QI, playing the fool alongside the sagacious Stephen Fry.

So it may come as a surprise to some people to learn that he first made his name as a stand-up comedian, rather than TV actor, and even more of a surprise that he hasn’t toured since 1999.

But now he’s back with a new – and long overdue – show that takes in Sheffield City Hall tonight and Halifax’s Victoria Theatre next month.

But why such a long gap? “Laziness, really,” he says, with a chuckle. “Actually I’d been thinking about getting back into stand-up for a while but I didn’t have any gigs and because I didn’t have any gigs I didn’t have any new material so I was stuck.”

Eventually, though, he was “nagged” by his agent into doing a tour in Australia last year. “I didn’t think people would know who I was so I was amazed when people actually turned up. It was pretty nerve-wracking because it’s been so long but once I got back into the swing of things it was great.”

The title of his new stand-up show, Life Is Pain, comes from a anecdote about a little girl who was being told off by her mother and said disconsolately “Life is pain.” “It’s just funny to think of something so bleak and yet so true coming out of the mouth of a child,” he says.

A lot has happened to Davies in the 13 years since he was last up on stage doing stand-up – he’s got married and become a father for a start – and at the age of 46, he doesn’t feel like he has a point to prove. “Coming back to stand-up has been like opening the bottle and letting the genie out. I feel I’m more honest and that’s a good thing because if you’re going to stand up there and talk then you’ve got to have something to say and I believe the more personal it is, the better it is.”

He talks about his childhood and the loss of his mother, who died of leukaemia when he was six, as well as philosophical musings on modern life and the challenges of being a father. “I’ve never shied away from talking about the more difficult things like losing my mother, but there are things I feel I can talk about now that I might not have done years ago, because there’s that bit of distance.”

Davies grew up in Essex, the youngest of three children raised by their accountant father. He didn’t enjoy school and it wasn’t until he went to Kent University in the 1980s to study drama, that he stumbled on the idea of being a comedian. “We did a lot of improv and I would always try and be funny. I was a bit of a show-off but it’s always given me huge pleasure to be able to make people laugh,” he says.

He started out not in the comedy clubs of London or the Edinburgh Fringe but in the unlikely surroundings of the Whitstable Labour Club. “Back when I was a student it was a run down fishing village although now it’s all very gentrified. It used to be full of students but they can’t afford to live there. Whitstable was a funny old place, there were quite a lot of artists so it had a bit of a bohemian feel to it.

“But the only place to go after the pubs closed was the Labour club and one evening I got tagged on to an Amnesty International benefit. I’d been threatening to get up on stage so they put my name on the poster and dared me to do it.”

As it turned out his debut went well enough for him to try his luck on the comedy circuit which led to a spell working in North America. “I had a three month stint in Canada performing at various Fringe festivals and Comedy clubs, which was fantastic.”

When he returned to the UK he took over from Frank Skinner as MC at a comedy club in Birmingham. “I remember doing it for the first time and people saying, ‘you’re not Frank. Where’s Frank?’” he says, laughing. “Those were happy days and I look back very fondly on them, it was just me on tour but you always seemed to be surrounded by other comics.”

By the early 90s, he was quickly making a name for himself. He was named Best Young Comic by Time Out and appeared on Tonight with Jonathan Ross before winning the Edinburgh Festival Critics Award for Comedy in 1994. Then, in 1996, he took on the title role in Jonathan Creek playing a trick-deviser for a stage magician with a side interest in solving crimes.

“I’d always wanted to be an actor and Jonathan Creek was my big break in acting terms and the fact the show is still being watched around the world is amazing. A lot of people who like QI started watching Jonathan Creek so it keeps finding a new audience, and it’s very gratifying to be part of something written by David Renwick, who’s just brilliant.”

But while Jonathan Creek was a huge success, not all his television work has gone down as well as he would have liked. He played chef Roland White in the BBC comedy Whites, “that was great fun to do,” only for it be axed after just one series, which he admits is a source of frustration.

Davies also appeared on screen as the face of Abbey National a few years back when he fronted its ad campaign. This would have been unremarkable had it not been for the fact the commercials were directed by comedy writer and TV producer John Lloyd.

“He said he had this idea for a TV show, a quiz show where it doesn’t matter if you get the answer right, you just had to be interesting. I said it sounded great and he said, ‘good’ because not everyone had been quite as positive. So we did a pilot and it went from there.”

The show in question, of course, was QI and over the past 11 years has developed into one of the BBC’s best-loved programmes. It is also one of those rare gifts from the TV gods – a show that is simultaneously informative and entertaining. Davies has appeared live in every episode bar one (when he was watching Arsenal play in the Champions League final) and along with host Stephen Fry has become part of the show’s fabric.

“Stephen wasn’t on telly a great deal at the time so to get him was quite a coup because he’s always so witty and clever,” he says.

On screen, he and Fry appear to get on well together, so is it the case off screen, too? “We enjoy working together probably because we’re both a bit barking, but we don’t socialise with each other that much because he’s always off travelling.”
And why does he think the show is so popular? “John Lloyd says it’s because it’s about toffs against oiks, even though I’m a very middle-class, well-educated oik, I’m still an oik by their standards,” he says, with a chuckle.

“I think the longevity is down to the hard work of the research team who spend months behind the scenes researching new material which seems to just flow out of Stephen who sits there like some kind of deity. I don’t do any of the hard work, I just turn up on the day and say something silly and play the fool.”

It’s a role he’s happy to oblige with, just as he’s delighted to have reconnected with his stand-up roots.

“It’s very gratifying that people want to come and see you and I’m amazed that I had an audience,” he says.

“It’s a privilege to be able to do this and it’s exciting to be on stage, there’s nobody there to tell you what to do, no one’s going to cancel your show and it’s entirely down to you whether or not you succeed.”

A lot of people would struggle under 
that kind of pressure, but Davies says he’s in his element.

“I feel comfortable on stage, it might be a bit nerve-wracking at first but as Bill Bailey always says: ‘Face to the front and keep saying funny things’ ... that’s the secret of stand-up comedy.”

Alan Davies is appearing at Sheffield City Hall tonight, (tickets 0114 2789 789) and Victoria Theatre, Halifax, November 30, (tickets 01422 351 158).