This article is for Radio Times magazine
Back to my Roots It has been over a decade since comedian, Alan Davies, took a break from stand up comedy to embark on an acting career that would make him a BBC star. Now, he wants to go back to the stage where he was first spotted as Time Outʼs Best Young Comic in 1991. I meet Alan Davies at the Phoenix Bar in London's Cavendish Square, where he's down in the tiny basement theatre finishing the latest date in his Edinburgh warm-up run. This August will see his first shows at the festival in more than a decade, but judging by the clapping and cheering coming from downstairs he needn't be worried. Waiting at the bar with a pint of Guinness (for him) I hear the audience spilling out with energetic excitement. I have to wait a while as Alan gets his picture taken with fans and signs autographs. Alan sips the froth off his Guinness and I ask him how it went. “Tonight was amazing, the crowd were great and I had fun,” he says. “It is very useful to me doing gigs like this, the only way you can prepare for a big show is trying out new material on the stage and seeing how people react to it.” Alan has just finished filming a new series of the popular yet obscure game show QI that will reach our screens this autumn. “I love doing QI. We always have such a good team and each series is getting better and better,” he enthuses. It was after filming QI in Australia, after the live tours there last year that got Alan back into stand-up. “I did some gigs while I was in Australia and thought Iʼd get some material together for a new show.” We have to stop the interview as Alan is interrupted by a girl from the audience on the way out from the gig. “Oh god, thatʼs the girl in the front row who I said Iʼd try and have sex with in the four-minute warning. What an awful thing to say,” he laughs. Oh, the demand of being a comedian itʼs such a hard life (yeah right). Alan takes another gulp of Guinness and says that he wants to revisit the kind of comedy he perfected before he had a family (he married literary agent Katie Maskell in 2007 and they have two young children). “It is much more of a return to my younger days,” he explains. “With stand-up it is me and my own words, I donʼt have to rely on anyone else.” Since 2001, Alan has been in hit shows like Jonathan Creek and Bob and Rose but he also hopes to continue his acting career next year. “I would love to get back into acting again, we will just have to see what they have for me.” Alan is a renowned comedic actor, but I am eager to know if he is comfortable in both serious and comedy roles. “Comedy is my natural home, but it doesnʼt
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really translate if the writing isnʼt any good. On screen a bad script can render the funniest actor completely hopeless,” he says. Will he do another Jonathan Creek Christmas special? “We will have to see what comes up,” he laughs mysteriously. “Well we are actually planning to do an Easter special of Jonathan Creek next year so that will be nice to see the cast again, theyʼre really great people and I love playing that role.” He finishes his pint as we wrap up the interview. I leave him to the group of eagerly awaiting fans holding out their program in hope of an autograph. He flashes that world-weary grin of his and walks away.
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