1 hour ago
2 
After a life of loveable yet sharp TV panel show appearances under a shaggy, puppy-like lid of curly hair – which became the trademark feature of Jonathan Creek for almost a decade – it was clear Alan Davies was going to be a likeable bloke.
But as he approaches 60, the QI star’s people-pleasing public profile along with his happy-go-lucky armour has cluttered all around him. But what’s underneath is much more salient, as I discovered while watching his most personal – and perhaps worryingly raw – stand-up show yet at the Edinburgh Fringe.
‘If I’m a cake, there are all these ingredients in me, right?’ Alan tells Metro over Zoom, in a tone that suggests ‘stay with me’ on this admittedly unsatisfactory metaphor.
‘The cake that I’m putting on stage is not the same. It’s like the ingredients aren’t there. It’s decorated better and it’s nicer to look at. It’s got its own virtues. It’s about getting the two cakes the same,’ he says, answering every question steadily and thoughtfully, in stark contrast to the bouncy quick-fire Alan we’re accustomed to seeing on our screens.
There’s a disconnect, naturally, with any stand-up comedian. Their stage persona allows them to be someone people will pay to see; a glossified, chaoticised, or exaggerated version of their relatively ordinary selves.
But until now – in Alan’s return to stand-up comedy after 10 years – the disparity has been gaping. Through Think Ahead, his stand-up show which he’s touring this autumn and beyond, Alan is closing that distance. It’s time to put his people-pleasing cat jokes to bed.
During his bone-scratchingly personal and raw show – and in between some knee-slapping anecdotes (don’t worry) – Alan opens up on stage for the first time about his horrific experience of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his father.
‘It’s like I say to the audience, come to the edge of the cliff, and then we all look over together, and then we go back,’ Alan says of this brave moment in the show.
‘It’s a comedy show. I’ve always had this view of stand-up: whatever your opinions are, whatever you want to say, you have to buy the time from the audience by being really funny at the start,’ he adds.
‘You have to engage them and reassure them and get the laughs going at the beginning. And then as the show goes on, they want to know more about you.’
When Metro saw Alan perform his Edinburgh run, he looked visibly affected by recounting the ordeal: he suffered shortness of breath and his chest tightened, which he revealed were symptoms of his PTSD from the years of abuse.
Have these on-stage retellings… opened the floodgates for Alan?
‘It’s quite tricky that bit,’ he admits, thinking. ‘Katie [Alan’s wife] was a bit concerned about that, because I told her that was happening, and she said, “I don’t want you to re-traumatise yourself every night for two years of touring.”‘
But Alan hopes his physical PTSD response may ease off as he tours the show more.
‘If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But I think it surprised me. But then I thought, well, this is the reality of this experience for lots and lots of people,’ he says.
Childhood abuse helpline
Ten years ago, the line between pure comedy and muddy drama was blurred with the likes of Fleabag and Richard Gadd’s Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning Monkey See, Monkey Do, which turned into Baby Reindeer.
Stand-up comedians were suddenly expected to bear their souls and darkest secrets on stage. Comedian Amy Mason told Metro at the Edinburgh Fringe this year how her hugely personal shows sometimes sparked audience interactions of people dumping their trauma in response to the show. It’s lovely, obviously. But it’s also overwhelming.
‘People do come up to me and say, “That happened to me, or that happened to my friend,”‘ Alan says.
‘I always just say, “Thank you for telling me”. I can’t think of another response really, and I want people to feel able to say that, not just to me, but to anybody. It’s kind of the point.
‘But I don’t say, “Oh, let’s go and have a drink and talk about this.” I’m not qualified to anyway, but I try to be kind to people. You try to be kind to people anyway. It’s not always possible.’
It’s hard to think of Alan being anything but kind. But one recent unsavoury interaction with a fellow Londoner unsettled him – he hasn’t had a run in like this in years.
‘A guy came up to me in the street, and he stopped me right in front of me, and he said my name loudly and held his hand out for a handshake, and I was really miles away. I was thinking about something else,’ Alan explains.
‘And then he said to me, “Don’t be a pr**k.” And I said, “Why are you calling me a pr**k?” He said, “I didn’t call you a prick. I said, don’t be a prick.” I said, “What are you doing? I feel like I’m not being a prick. Think maybe you’re being a prick”.’
After this bizarre exchange, Alan walked away and the man who’d recognised him hurled ‘insults and abusive names’ at him all the way down the street.
‘I thought, God, I haven’t had this for years. You know, really, it’s been ages since that sort of thing happened.’
‘It really unsettled me,’ he admits, explaining the man told him he was homeless – but looked to have ‘freshly laundered’ clothes.
The sour taste this left in Alan’s mouth aside, that encounter talks to a lot of stuff Alan touches on in his stand-up show.
‘It talks about fame and it talks about mental health, it talks about homelessness, it talks about male aggression and hostility. It’s sort of lots of the things that are in my show, ironically,’ he says.
Of course, it’s a cliche that men don’t talk about their feelings. But Alan is aware this particular cliche has substance.
‘If you say we’re all going for a drink, it means we’re all going for a laugh. That’s what you mean. We’re going to let off some steam and unwind and be together and laugh and joke,’ he says.
Problems come, Alan says, when men ‘shut down’ because they haven’t discussed what’s really going on with their family.
‘Trusting the people who love you is very difficult for lots of people, I think. I think quite a lot of relationships, I imagine, are not complete because of that. It’s very difficult when you’ve got this secret,’ he says.
‘It’s made more difficult because very often abuse – and usually actually, abuse of children – it takes place within the family.
‘Often the person who’s speaking up is the one who will be ostracised or somehow excluded from the family, because the abuser is often a very powerful person in that in that family.
‘They don’t just manipulate the victim. They manipulate people all around the victim as well. You can’t believe anything they say. They’re very dangerous, and they need to be jailed.’
It’s heavy stuff for Alan to re-hash the whole time, I sense. He is sacrificing the darkest parts of his private life in the name of helping others.
‘I feel better about the sort of things I’m writing and talking about,’ Alan says. ‘I’m 60 next year. Imagine if I wrote it all down and put it in a box and said, publish after I die, and then I died, and then people read it went, “Oh, my God, I didn’t know that about him.”’
But is Alan comfortable with how much he is giving?
He shrugs with his smile, somewhat beat. ‘I’m alright,’ he says. ‘I was no good before, so it makes no odds.’
Alan Davies: Think Ahead is touring the UK this autumn and winter. Tickets here.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·