‘There were bad moments and bad behaviour’: Alan Davies on booze, ego, comedy and cancer

At 60, Davies is less of a hell-raiser than he once was – but a great deal happier. He talks about the excesses of the 90s, the sexual abuse that made him such an ‘angry boy’, his recent bladder cancer, and fatherhood

It looks as if Alan Davies is in the wrong place. Not as in the wrong venue: he’s here at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, a north London fringe theatre and comedy venue, where we arranged to meet. But he’s in the wrong part of it. Although there’s a stage with a single microphone at standup height, Davies – who has performed here many times – joins me in the auditorium, sitting down at a table. Someone in the shadows is testing the lighting, and suddenly there’s a spotlight on the stage where the mic is. Is it tempting to jump up there and do his thing, even to an audience of one? “It is a bit, yeah,” he admits.

When I started the interview, I’d found that the notebook I’d brought with me contained some diary entries from my 14-year-old son. “Have you got the wrong notebook, or has he been writing in your notebook?” Davies asks. I think B. “Sounds like he wants it to be found.”