{"id":578483,"date":"2026-08-01T07:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578483\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T07:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:30:11","slug":"comedian-alan-davies-i-talk-about-what-my-father-did-and-how-i-had-him-arrested-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578483\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedian Alan Davies: \u2018I talk about what my father did, and how I had him arrested\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alan Davies<\/a> is \u201cfunnier than ever\u201d. It\u2019s on the blurb for Think Ahead, his first stand-up show in a decade, and it\u2019s true, he says. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve presented a show that, if it was a cake, it\u2019s the whole cake, with all the ingredients. And I think it\u2019s a similarly nice cake. Better than the last cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the show he talks about the travails of turning 60 and the \u201crelentless eye-rolls\u201d he receives from his kids, but he also goes to \u201ccertain places\u201d, having decided he was ready to \u201ctalk about what my father did, and how I ended up having him arrested\u201d. He laughs gently as he notes that this might not sound like a comedy show. \u201cBut it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020, Davies revealed that he had been sexually abused by his father from the age of about eight until 13. He wrote about it in Just Ignore Him, a devastating memoir about the loss of his mother to leukaemia when he was six and his subsequent manipulation by a self-serving, predatory father who came into his bedroom to molest him.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s follow-up, White Male Stand-Up, he went on to re-evaluate how his life and career as a comedian and actor unfolded while he was \u201ccarrying all of this stuff, secretly \u2013 this secret shame\u201d. It made him an \u201cangry boy\u201d, which he didn\u2019t want to be.<\/p>\n

Think Ahead delves into this, although he stresses there\u2019s still \u201ca fair amount of frivolity\u201d in his stand-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely begin the show by trying to whip up as much comedic euphoria as I can. I like to get going quickly; I like to get laughs,\u201d he says from his north London home. He\u2019s softly spoken and reflective and can do several interviews like this in a day, but there was a time when he didn\u2019t want to; nor did he imagine he would ever address on stage the reality of his childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really thought it was just for a book,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is that feeling with a book or an audiobook of it being between you and the reader. They can take their time with it and go where they want with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Just Ignore Him came out, mid-pandemic, interviewers asked him about the abuse. \u201cI said, \u2018No, you don\u2019t understand. I don\u2019t want to talk about it. I\u2019ve written about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone who has had a terrible experience as a child is not obliged to talk about it to anyone, he says. \u201cThey will tell their story in their own time, in a way that suits them, to the person they want to tell it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlanAlan Davies. Photograph: Tony Briggs <\/p>\n

So he told the journalists that the answers to their questions were in the book. But the Covid years were grim for live comedy, and he was soon keen to tour again. He started to think that maybe audiences would listen to his story, and that he could tell it. Doubts about being able to \u201ckeep the level of laughs up\u201d subsided.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sean Lock: 8 Out of 10 Cats comedian dies aged 58Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I get older and I become more experienced as a comedian, and see more of life, I realise that all around us are people with these stories, and all throughout the audience there are people who\u2019ve had difficult experiences in their lives,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo grown-up wants to just have frivolity and superficial nonsense, at least not from someone who\u2019s standing in front of them for about 80 minutes. It would be different if you were doing an eight-minute spot on a telly show. You could talk about your dog, get a few laughs, go home. I\u2019ve done that myself a few times.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he first performed Think Ahead, at Edinburgh Festival Fringe<\/a> last August, the reception was assuring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audience were ready for this kind of storytelling. They want this sort of storytelling. They laugh their heads off, then they go totally silent and listen. They are engaged. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s really gratifying in a period when you think all people want to do is stare at their phones. Do they want to gather in a room and hear stories? They do, because this is human nature. Stories are what we have, and humour is our superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlanAlan Davies on stage in 2015. Photograph: Matthew Baker\/WireImage <\/p>\n

After Edinburgh he toured the UK, then took the show to Australia. Now he\u2019s back on the road in New Zealand, which will be followed by a string of dates in Britain and Ireland.<\/p>\n

He likes the welcome he receives in Australia and New Zealand. \u201cIf I\u2019ve ever had a negative media story, if there\u2019s ever been a bad tabloid story or something, it doesn\u2019t seem to get there. And if it does, they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irish audiences are likewise prepared to enjoy themselves, he finds. \u201cThey\u2019re able to decide that this is the time that they\u2019re going to have a good time. They come for that; they want that. So I very much look forward to doing the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is used to performing Think Ahead now, but the memory of his abuse sometimes causes shortness of breath \u2013 a \u201cmild\u201d iteration of post-traumatic stress disorder, he says. \u201cIt can still catch me when I\u2019m talking about stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

At book signings, people occasionally approach him to share their own stories. \u201cThey like to come quietly and speak quietly and say, \u2018Something like that happened to me, by the way,\u2019 and that happens quite a lot, and it\u2019s sad that it\u2019s so commonplace. But one of the reasons why abuse of children is commonplace, I think, is because the child is shamed into silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies doesn\u2019t question why people come to his shows \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m just delighted that they do\u201d \u2013 and doesn\u2019t know whether some of his audience now seeks him out specifically because they read Just Ignore Him.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m not good with forgiveness. Occasionally I meet someone who talks to me about the value of forgiveness, which I am yet to be convinced of\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Alan Davies<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine somebody coming across me for the first time. When you get to 60 and you\u2019ve been doing it for 35-years-plus, you think surely people are more likely to think, \u2018Oh my God, not this bloke again.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I like the idea that someone might have picked up my book expecting one thing and then thought, \u2018Oh wow, that\u2019s not what I expected. I\u2019ll go and see his stand-up: maybe there\u2019s more to him than I thought. Maybe he\u2019s a different sort of comedian than I thought he was.\u2019 You\u2019re always slightly pushing back against the public perception of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies started out in stand-up in the late 1980s. He believes his pursuit of laughs from strangers was a quest to find the love and attention he had been missing since his mother died, although this self-analysis came later, as did the realisation that, with a dysfunctional family behind him, he was seeking surrogate families everywhere he went.<\/p>\n

His fame soared in 1997, when he was cast as the duffel-coated title character in Jonathan Creek, David Renwick\u2019s comedy-mystery drama about a magician\u2019s assistant who solves crimes through his understanding of illusions. It was watched by millions \u2013 more than 11 million, at one point \u2013 on BBC One.<\/p>\n

He remains a regular presence on television courtesy of QI, the BBC Two comedy panel show on which it is better to be quite interesting than correct. Davies, the only permanent panellist, plays the daft foil to the knowledge-armed hosts of the show (Stephen Fry<\/a>, then Sandi Toksvig<\/a>), which has run for 23 seasons and counting.<\/p>\n

\"AlanAlan Davies with his Jonathan Creek costar Caroline Quentin in 1996. Photograph: Larry Ellis Collection\/Getty <\/p>\n

During his hiatus from stand-up, he went \u201caway from everything\u201d to do a two-year master\u2019s degree in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, which included a life-writing component led by the author Blake Morrison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a given on the course that you didn\u2019t talk about other people\u2019s work, certainly not on social media or anything like that, and what was talked about in workshops was private,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A Goldsmiths graduate came in one week to discuss the novel she had written about her own rape. \u201cYou realised that all around you there were people trying to find a way to create a piece of art or something worthwhile from the darkest, bleakest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The course taught Davies how to write about his childhood in 1970s Essex, but he already knew he had to do it. \u201cIt was getting in the way of everything else that I wanted to write. If I wanted to write a script or something, I just couldn\u2019t get away from it. It was the first thing in my head all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was another catalyst. In 2017, his stepmother told him that his father had amassed a collection of images of naked boys, some labelled \u201cteens\u201d. Davies reported him to the police, telling them what happened to him. The UK\u2019s Crown Prosecution Service found his evidence \u201ccredible and compelling\u201d, but declined to prosecute. By this point his father had Alzheimer\u2019s, and he died in 2023.<\/p>\n

Davies is \u201cvery proud\u201d of Just Ignore Him, which is darkly humorous but mostly heartbreaking. It begins with the loss of his mother, who was not told she was dying, denying her the opportunity to say goodbye. His memories of her are finite but potent. After she died, his father directed terrifying \u201csurges of flat-handed rage\u201d at him. When the \u201cspecial cuddles\u201d began, he initially reasoned that it was an improvement on being hit.<\/p>\n

White Male Stand-Up, \u201ckind of the part two\u201d, covers entertaining showbiz ground but is still threaded with pain, with Davies fearing he has become a \u201cdrunken adult incarnation\u201d of the fight-prone, misbehaving boy he was in his lonely, confused school years. Something needed to change, for his own sake and that of his wife, the children\u2019s author Katie Maskell, and their growing family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my daughter was born, I really didn\u2019t want to be like my father, so if \u2013 or when, rather \u2013 I shouted at her for some misdemeanour, I would always find her and apologise. I remember going to her one day and saying, \u2018I\u2019m sorry I shouted at you,\u2019 and she said, \u2018Oh, Daddy, you always say that.\u2019 It made me laugh, but I thought, \u2018That\u2019s okay. That\u2019s still better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Abandoning the burden of secrecy has been beneficial, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve never really understood or particularly believed in the term closure. When people talk about closure it\u2019s a bit of an Americanism. But I think this, in some sense, did give me some closure, because I\u2019ve told that story now. All the details are there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be going too far, however, to say the process was cathartic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not good with forgiveness. Occasionally I meet someone who talks to me about the value of forgiveness, which I am yet to be convinced of. It feels like you\u2019re being asked to do something else now. \u2018And now you have to do this.\u2019 No, I\u2019m not doing anything any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlanAlan Davies with Zoe Lyons, Sandi Toksvig, Chris McCausland and Ed Byrne on QI. Photograph: Freemantle\/BBC <\/p>\n

He talks about his daughter, now 16, and his sons, aged 15 and 10, in his live show \u201ca fair bit\u201d. They haven\u2019t seen his stand-up, but they know this is what he does.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey once saw me on TV talking about taking my daughter to soft play. I really hurt myself and was wondering if I was ever going to be able to get out of the soft play without cutting the roof off the place, because I kind of got stuck in a mangle thing. They realised I was earning money from telling stories about them \u2013 and they felt they had a right to ask for more toys,\u201d he says, laughing.<\/p>\n

In the show he recalls a trip to Back to the Future: The Musical with his youngest, who detected a resemblance between him and Doc Brown, the mad scientist. Davies discovered he was much older than Christopher Lloyd<\/a> was when he played him in the film. Suddenly he was at an age when he was spending more time in the pharmacy than in the gym.<\/p>\n

In his set, he doesn\u2019t dwell on a recent cancer scare \u2013 he had an operation to remove a tumour from his bladder in 2024 \u2013 but failing body parts do feature.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Comedian Davies puts foot in it and angers Anfield faithfulOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One night an audience member\u2019s phone went off mid-show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that\u2019s very annoying if you\u2019re in the middle of a play and you\u2019re in character, but for comedians sometimes it\u2019s a gift. You just want them to answer the phone and tell you who it is. So I said, \u2018Is that to remind you to take your medication?\u2019 And she said yes. That was one of those laughs where it was completely out of the blue and unexpected, and it wasn\u2019t even me who got the laugh. It was the woman in the third row.\u201d<\/p>\n

He loves it when laughs mingle with surprise like this. \u201cI\u2019ve never really been a set-up-and-punchline sort of writer, someone like Frank Skinner<\/a> or Jimmy Carr<\/a>, amongst my peers. I\u2019m more of a rambly storyteller. I quite liked Billy Connolly<\/a> when I was younger. But if you can find a moment that they don\u2019t see coming, then you get a real thunderclap of laughs, and there\u2019s a massive sort of exhalation of breath from everyone. That\u2019s really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies has spoken before about having a \u201cdeeply ingrained eagerness to please\u201d. He thinks it will always be a part of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Hay Festival I was being interviewed by Mel Giedroyc<\/a> about my book. As soon as you go out on stage and you see people \u2013 and I\u2019m sure Mel feels the same \u2013 there\u2019s an instinct to try and get laughs going. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very deep-rooted. For a long time, actually, I couldn\u2019t go in the post office without trying to get a smile from the person selling me a stamp. It\u2019s quite an affliction.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he worries less now about trying to please everyone through stand-up. He tries to find as many laughs as he can, but he also wants to illuminate the complete picture, the stuff of life. \u201cIt\u2019s not such a skin-deep, superficial thing these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Help is available if you have been sexually abused, including from One in Four (01-6624070, oneinfour.ie<\/a>), Cari (0818-924567, cari.ie<\/a>) and Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (1800-778888, drcc.ie<\/a>). You can report child sexual abuse confidentially to the Garda on 1800-555222<\/p>\n

Alan Davies: Think Ahead<\/a> is at Cork Opera House<\/a> on Monday, October 12th; Ulster Hall<\/a>, Belfast, on Tuesday, October 13th; and 3Olympia Theatre<\/a>, Dublin, on Wednesday, October 14th; Just Ignore Him and White Male Stand-Up are published by Abacus and Monoray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alan Davies is \u201cfunnier than ever\u201d. It\u2019s on the blurb for Think Ahead, his first stand-up show in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[91230,243920,1578,81713,243922,9054,57584,204210,93,133978,61,60,101736,243923,243921,37146],"class_list":["post-578483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-3olympia-theatre","tag-alan-davies","tag-bbc","tag-billy-connolly","tag-blake-morrison","tag-christopher-lloyd","tag-cork-opera-house","tag-edinburgh-festival-fringe","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-skinner","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jimmy-carr","tag-mel-giedroyc","tag-sandi-toksvig","tag-stephen-fry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}