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Rob Beckett David Essex music • theatre • films • listings • comedy • family days out what’s on 03:04:14 David Es h a t s o It’s the small things Alan Davies on the little victories in life PLUS Get two Happy Days tickets for £10

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Alan Davies / Jonathan Creek

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Page 1: Alan Davies

Rob Beckett • David Essex

music • theatre • films • listings • comedy • family days out

what’s on03:04:14

• • David Es

hat’s o

It’s thesmallthingsAlan Davieson the littlevictories in life

PLUSGet two HappyDays tickets

for £10

Page 2: Alan Davies

ALAN Davies sounds absolutely shattered.He has already called once to hurriedly butpolitely rearrange our chat (he got stuck

taking his daughter to a birthday party), and nowappears to be utterly exhausted, his voice raspy, histone weary, his sentences tailing off into static.

But then, Davies has quite a few good reasons tobe tired. When we speak, it’s just a few days beforeJonathan Creek returns, and a few days after theend of a stint presenting Après-Ski – a light-heartedcommentary on the Winter Olympics in Sochi.Then there’s a new series of QI in the works and animpending solo stand-up tour, which is coming toCambridge Corn Exchange.

“It’s all on top of me really,” he admits wryly.“I need to get my act organised.”

So you can see why thetiredness is easy to forgive, andto be fair it’s not every dayyou get to quiz JonathanCreek, is it?

True to previous form,the Essex-born 48-year-old’s latest show, LittleVictories, is loaded withnew autobiographicalmaterial. His secondtour since 2013’s LifeIs Pain, which dealtwith the death of hismother when hewas 6 and followeda decade-longbreak fromstand-up, thistime around it’sparenthood andthe daily battles thatcome with it gettinga ribbing, and heconcedes he’s“pretty nervous”about it.

“I set out to makepeople laugh fromthe first minute tothe last minute,that’s my task,”says Davies,matter offactly. “In themeantime I’mtalking a bitabout being aparent, havinghad a parentand how Icompare, andmy kids, a bitof scatologicalnonsenseand somejokes about Andy

Murray. And that’ll be about anhour and a half.”

He regularly swings backto his and writer wife KatieMaskell’s, children, Susie, 4and Robert, 2, like the needleon a record player, always

curving back towards thecore. It’s partly becausehe loves them, obviously,

but also because they makehim laugh more than

anyone else (fellowprofessional

comediansincluded);hence whythey’veinspiredlargechunks ofthe show.

“Onceyouhave thechildrenand they’reall right,thenthe littlevictories

come in,”he says.

“Persuadingthem to get into

a car seat, or getout of a car seat oreat their broccoli.And, when you’rethe kid, the littlevictories come intrying to get yourfather to let yougo somewhere or

do somethingor buy you

something.“Life’s a series of little

mini campaigns, trying toget what you want. Someof them last half a minute,some of them last months.”

Davies’s comedy career started in thelate 80s after he studied drama at theUniversity of Kent and found himselfhappily weighed down by the pressureof being named Time Out’s Best YoungComic in 1991. Then along came therole of his career: Jonathan Creek, theingenious, straggly-haired, cultishly-adored amateur sleuth.

Although the new series has beenwidely and scathingly criticised (that’sTwitter for you) – first because Creekhas ditched the duffel coat, and second,because he’s swapped the windmill for awife (Sarah Alexander) – it hasn’t lost any ofits shine for Davies.

“It’s a privilege really for me,” he sayshumbly. “David Renwick’s scripts are as goodas ever; as long as he’s writing the scripts thenwe’ll make them; that’s the way it works.”

So he hasn’t grown bored, bearing in mindhe’s been playing the lateral-minded privateeye since 1997? “I don’t think so; it’s fun youknow? And I don’t do it so much that it irks,” hesays, although previous instances of “tramp”-likehair extensions have given him cause to waveroccasionally. The truth is, he admits: “My own hairis deteriorating.”

While the acting, presenting and stand-up havegone pretty well, at school Davies actually dreamtof being a football reporter, although he’s ratherpleased that didn’t work out . . . “I’ve met quitea few football reporters since and a charmless,miserable bunch they are,” deadpans the die-hardArsenal fan. “There’s one or two exceptions thatI have a good laugh with, but mostly they’re self-regarding, over-serious, cynical and I’m quite gladI didn’t go down that route.

“Now I still like football and I can just go as anormal fan and not be all world weary about it.”

Instead he flutters with the odd bit of sportspresenting; the occasional radio appearancerubs up against his football podcast, The TuesdayClub, and more recently he got considerably morewhipped up than your average curling expert onChannel 4’s snow-capped Après-Ski, reserving hisworld weariness for the bona fide sports reporters.

In fact, it is quite difficult to get a happy-go-lucky response out of Davies. Presumably partof his self-deprecating charm, ask him whichcomedians do make him laugh and he ummsand aahs, plumping for “the Graham Norton

20 | April 3, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

‘Life is a series of mini campaigns: somelast half a minute, some last months’

Music

� Alan Davies: Little Victories, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Saturday April 5 at 8pm. Tickets £20-£25 from (01223) 357851 or cornex.co.uk

Sleepy but as deadpan and laid backas ever, the stand-up and telly mantalks to ELLA WALKER about a wholeload of little victories

Editor: Paul Kirkley Writer: Ella WalkerEmail: [email protected]

For breaking entertainment news for thecity, visit cambridge-news.co.uk/whatson– plus follow @CamWhatsOn on Twitter

Alan Davies:

Page 3: Alan Davies

Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | April 3, 2014 | 21

LOADS MORE ONLINE at cambridge-news.co.uk/whatson

show, we get a laugh out of on a Friday night”.Changing tack (which comedians aren’t funny?)does earn a trademark wheeze of a laughthough, and a diplomatic answer: “There areloads that don’t, haha. I’m not going to tell youwho doesn’t make me laugh, a bit uncharitableisn’t it? Haha. It’s such a personal thing isn’t it,comedy? One person wants John Hegley and thenext person wants Micky Flanagan.”

He does point out that as long as his showsare full, he’s not too fussed either way, but thatmakes him sound a tad cold. Get him on to thesubject of the researchers and writers he workswith though, and he’s genuinely impressed,putting the popularity of QI in particular downto the team behind the scenes.

“Well I think, much like Jonathan Creek, there’sa lot of work goes into it. Renwick does all the

work on Creek, and on QI there’s a wholeteam of researchers and producersbeavering away,” he muses, plunging

into an admiring spiel about the picture teamwho research thousands of images per series.“Never mind all the questions and the facts,for every fact that gets used, another load getrejected.”

He adds drolly: “The comedians come in at theend, lark about, and that’s it!”

Is Stephen Fry as intimidatingly amazing as heseems?

“No, he’s not as amazing,” Davies chuckles.“QI is quite a trick you know. He’s made to looklike the cleverest man in the world, haha, buthe is amazing. You wouldn’t want to have anargument with Stephen.”

And does he learn much, sitting on the panelseason after season?

“No, it totally goes in one ear and out theother,” he laughs. “I can’t remember any of it,I’m so busy trying to think of something funnyto say.”

[email protected]

‘You wouldn’t want to have anargument with Stephen Fry’

FAMILY MAN: AlanDavies; facing

page, with SarahAlexander, his

Jonathan Creekco-star