TV star Alan Davies explains to Steve Pratt about his decision to return to stand-up

I TELL Alan Davies that he sounds bitter and twisted. His remarks make it clear that he’s far from happy that the BBC cancelled his chef sitcom Whites after just one series.

While QI, the other BBC series which he’s been doing since 2003, continues merrily along Whites, in which he played chef Roland White, died a premature death in his opinion.

“Very bitter,” he agrees, adding “Especially when you see what has been on.”

He’d probably be doing a second series of Whites now if the BBC hadn’t pulled the plug. “If it came up I would jump at it,” he says. “I got a lot of pleasure from Whites, I’m very proud of it and enjoyed myself.”

We are not here to talk about Whites, but the return of Davies to stand-up comedy for the first time in more than a decade with a show called Life Is Pain.

It’s a long tour – some 50 dates nationwide stretched over four months – because he’s only doing three shows a week so that he’s not away from his home and family too long. His children – Susie, three in December, and 19-month-old Robert – figure prominently in both his conversation and his act.

Having children after marrying writer Katie Maskell five years ago, has given him a new outlook on life and, as we speak, a bit of a sore throat – “from my children or for doing too much shouting.

It’s changed the way I would schedule a tour.

I want to get home. I do three shows a week and spend the rest of the time at home with them.

There’s toddler group and playgroup. That’s how I wanted to do it,” he says. They also provide him with plenty of material for his act. The title Life Is Pain was meant as “a little tongue-in-cheek”, but then he realised it didn’t come across as that.

People thought he was in real pain.

“There are some painful things of my life, which I touch on, but not dwell on. I talk about things that have changed in my life, like having children. But there’s some filth about sex toys too, so there is something for everyone.”

We know him so well from QI and acting jobs in series like Jonathan Creek that we tend to forget he started out as a stand-up in 1988, notching up best newcomer awards (City Limits new act of the year, Time Out best young comic, British Comedy Award best newcomer) in advance of star status with Perrier and British Comedy Award nominations and sell-out tours.

The arrival of Jonathan Creek, the magician sleuth who solved seemingly impossible crimes week after week, in 1996, changed the direction of his career. The show ran for 14 years, gaining worldwide recognition. More TV series – Bob & Rose and The Brief among them – and theatre parts – in The Odd Couple at the Edinburgh Festival and Auntie And Me in the West End – left him little time for standup.

TEN years of QI with Stephen Fry have meant a regular TV gig and now in a roundabout way led to his return to stand-up. They were doing a live tour of QI in Australia when the promoter suggested that Davies should get his act together again. “I knew, because it was Australia, that I could do old material from the 1990s if it came to it, although I didn’t want to do that,” he says.

“I performed in a studio theatre and got a real kick out of it. I found that as soon as I went on stage and had a microphone in your hand it felt nice to be back.

“It’s fun to hear the laughter and talk to the audience and get something back from them. I’m only six dates into this tour, by November I might be jaded,”

“I thought stand-up was a thing that had passed and there was a time I couldn’t really do stand-up very well. I needed to concentrate on one thing at a time and be organised.”

Now that QI has become a institution he’s finding a new audience – people who like the TV show – on his stand-up tour.

With more episodes of QI commissioned by the BBC that show is going to be around for years to come.

He thinks it would be fun to do a live theatre version in this country as they did in Australia, but nothing’s been set up yet.

What he’s learnt now is not to do too many things at once. “I’ve always liked going from one thing to another and to keep changing. That’s the ideal. I think if they said to me you can only do stand-up between now and the end of your working life, I couldn’t stand it,” he says.

  • Alan Davies Life Is Pain: Newcastle City Hall, October 27. Box Office 0191- 277-8030 and newcastlecityhall.org