Alan Davies; actor, QI panel member and stand-up comedian. Most will probably recognise Alan from Jonathan Creek and QI but few may know he actually began his career as a stand-up comedian. Impact Arts caught up with Alan as he tours the country with his new stand-up show “Little Victories”.
This tour, “Little Victories” is your second tour since you’ve returned to stand-up comedy after more or less 10 years out. Where did the ideas and title for this tour come from?
So with “Life is Pain” [the previous tour], the title came from a story about a little girl who said ‘life is pain’ to her mum when she was being told off, and that became the title of the show. I wanted to call this show “Sex is Pain” because I have a whole anecdote about trying to impress my now wife and making too much of an effort. But my promoters in Australia thought that sex is pain might be a bit misleading and I might get a different audience to what I was expecting. So for the title I took Little Victories, which comes from an anecdote in the show about trying to get one over on my father. Much of the show is about me and my dad, or being a dad myself and me and my kids. It’s sort of about the preoccupations of family life.
I think it seems to be working well. Now I realise of course that anything you think and feel yourself is the same as what everybody else is thinking and feeling, and it resonates with people. Anyone who’s been a father or has a father will get something out of it.
So the tour is lots of short stories interwoven and not so much about the gags?
Yeah that’s me. I’m a story-telling, anecdotal sort of rascal. What I tend to do is jot things down that I’ve thought of, that I’ve remembered, or have overheard. Then I can get all the notes together and have a read through and see where I’m at when I put together a new show. Some of it comes together into material quite quickly and some of it takes longer. But by the time I get out in to touring in the theatres the whole thing is working by then. And then I look back and I think, “how did we get to this?”.
Is that a process you’d advise anyone starting out in comedy to take?
Well everyone’s got their own way, there are so many different types of stand-up comedy format. But I do feel as a stand-up, the more personal you are and truthful you are about your own view, the better it is really. Otherwise you risk turning to ‘generic stand-up material’. That sort of stuff drives me mad. Anyone could have told that story, any comedian could have done that material.
I want my material to be stuff that only I can do. That’s the idea, that people are laughing out loud, but only I could have said it. It’s so personal to me. So that’s the goal, achieving it is very difficult! I think if you’re going to see someone and they’re on stage for a couple of hours, you want to know about them. You want to know who they are and what they’re about. You don’t just want to hear gags. But also, I’m not a joke writer. I can’t write jokes, so this has always been a bit of an affliction for me as a professional comedian!
Most people probably associate you with QI and Jonathan Creek before stand-up. Do you think that impacts the kind of people who come and see your show and what their expectations are?
Yeah, I think so. I’m not sure as much now, as I’ve done one tour already, but certainly initially many people didn’t realise I ever did stand-up comedy. Sometimes you could tell the audience were thinking “Oh my God, this isn’t what he’s like on QI!” so it may have been a bit of an eye opener. I think it’s the best thing I do though and I know how to deal with an audience as I’ve been doing it a long time. So I’m confident people won’t be disappointed but they might be surprised.
Do you think there’s more pressure this time round, having had such a success with “Life is Pain”?
No, not really. There’s always a bit of anxiety in the beginning when you’re trying to come up with material. You always think it will never be as funny as the old routine. But then you find a way to work through the material and you do find new things and new ideas. And then you end up thinking this show’s better than the last show. So it’s a process you have to go through.
If you could only take three things with you on tour what would you take?
My wife and two children would be nice! But failing that my phone and phone charger are the main things, so that way I can keep in touch with home and the world. After that, clean socks?! Maybe my set list, I’m 48 now and I forget what I’m doing sometimes.
You mentioned your wife and two children, is it difficult being away from them on tour?
I try to manage that by only doing three shows a week. So actually its better than doing a filming schedule. When I worked on an ITV show called ‘The Brief’ I would be on that for 14 weeks. It would be a 6 day week followed by a 5 day week, 12 hour days and it was very very tiring. I didn’t have a wife and children at the time but I can totally understand why so many people on the crew had gone through divorce and had problems in their relationships. It’s really very unforgiving. So actually, compared to that, doing a stand up tour is actually pretty good. You’re almost working part time. I’m seeing lots of the children and that’s one of the reasons why I do this now.
Do you think in the future you’ll continue to do more stand-up and less TV work then?
It’s different sorts of TV I look for now, more entertainment stuff. So I can do more TV shows where you record a whole show in one evening. to do three QI episodes takes 3 evenings so you can do three QIs in a day in 24 hrs. It’s pretty tiring, each one is two hrs recording. But you can do a lot more entertainment shows in less time. It’s not that I don’t want to do drama ever again but happily it coincides with a time when I get offered less drama scripts anyway.
Emma Lawton
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