Up the Creek

SHE’S only four years old, but Alan Davies’ daughter has already heard a lot about Jonathan Creek. ‘‘She’s heard the words Jonathan Creek so many times that she’s asked who Jonathan Creek is,’’ says the comedian, who has played the magician and title character in the BBC One drama since 1997.

And the questions don’t stop there. ‘‘Daddy, what’s stand-up? she asks. It’s so peculiar and funny that she’s heard that phrase, possibly from Katie and I talking,’’ explains the 47-yearold, who started out on the stand-up circuit.

Katie is Katie Maskell, Davies’ wife of seven years, who is a children’s author and mother to their daughter, Susie, and two-year-old son, Robert.

It’s clear that his family is ever present in his mind. Davies was raised in Essex by his dad, after his mum died when he was six years old.

After studying drama at university, he started his comedy career in the late 1980s, before finding greater fame in Jonathan Creek.

Last year, after a decade-long break, Davies began performing stand-up again and has suddenly found himself very busy – there’s a new tour, Little Victories, coming up this spring, as well as another series of the panel show QI and a new chat show in the pipeline.

‘‘It’s always the way with these things. You sit around for ages wondering what you’ll do and then you think, oh I’ll do a stand-up tour, and then you get offered three programmes at once, all of which you want to do,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s nothing to complain about, but it does make it a little harder to see the children, so I try very hard to balance it out. But the thing that actually gives way is your own life. Katie and I don’t do anything or go anywhere, all our spare time is spent with the children.’’ He uses video messaging to stay in touch with his family when he’s away. The youngsters won’t be watching their dad in BBC drama Jonathan Creek – they’re more interested in Peppa Pig and Charlie And Lola DVDs.

And they probably wouldn’t recognise him anyway, given the unflattering extensions he has to wear, now that his hair’s shorter in real life.

‘‘I went into the make-up bus and they had a polyester head with these lank, greasy, grey dark wefts of hair,’’ says Davies.

‘‘I said ‘I can’t remember there being a tramp character. The poor, sad actor who has to put that in their hair’, and the next thing I know, they put it in mine.’’ But the hair, along with the character’s trademark duffel coat (which the actor keeps at home in North London), means he can ‘‘look in the mirror and it’s a very familiar face to see’’.

Davies is enjoying spending as much time as possible with his young family.

‘‘Every parent I know who has teenagers says they suddenly go from wanting to be with you all the time to never wanting to see you,’’ he says.

‘‘So you have to make the most of it.’’

• Jonathan Creek returns to BBC1, Friday, 9pm