Comedian and QI star Alan Davies is back on tour for the first time in a decade - and the first time since the publication of an extraordinary memoir detailing his traumatic childhood. It's good to get back to doing the thing that really defines him, he tells What's On...

It's hard not to like Alan Davies. The Essexborn comedian is hugely engaging company, quick to laugh as well as mull over the ups, downs, complexities and absurdities of life. Which is especially gratifying in the wake of Just Ignore Him, his astonishingly candid second memoir that was published in 2020 and contained shocking revelations about his difficult childhood. The mother he adored died when he was six years old, he never got on with his two siblings - spending many family events as something of an outcast - and most alarmingly of all, he was sexually molested by his father.

The book is a tough read ("hard going but worth it" for writer and reader alike, says its author) but has been acclaimed for its candour and honesty. It has also been lauded for providing an insight into how such abuse manifests itself in the behaviour of the victim, something that has prompted many others to reach out, he says. "A lot of people have been in touch with me who have had similar experiences and said very nice things about the book," he says.

"I was told this would happen - that once launched into the world, it would develop a life of its own. I feel quite glad that I did it."

Even though the book contains many moments of (mostly dark) humour, the content is hardly material for comedy routines - but does the very fact that it exists inform his new stand-up show, Think Ahead, which he's touring in the autumn?

"It does a bit, because I now feel able, just a little bit, to address some of the things that happened to me as a kid, and also to talk about the sort of stand-up comedian I am nowadays, as opposed to what I was in my 20s, and why I did the things I did then and how I am now."

In some ways, Alan will no longer be the same person to those who have read the book and/or know the story.

"Perhaps that's right; I'll see how it goes. Lots of [the show] is about my life now - the byline is that I spend more time in the pharmacy than the gym, and the title is about the inevitable thinking ahead you do as you reach the second half of your life ... children growing up, what the future holds and so on."

So 'Think Ahead' isn't the sort of arbitrary title comedians typically give their shows just to appease an agent with a poster to design?

"There's always an element of that, and it's always inevitable because it's unusual that you're gonna be naming a show that's fully written, so it's necessarily got to be a little open ended. I actually use the phrase 'think ahead' in one of the routines, and when I was tinkering with ideas, it's the one that stuck. Pithy and to the point!"

It's been 10 years since Alan last went out on tour, a gap almost identical to the one he left between stand-up stints in the early noughties. I wondered if it reflected a love/hate relationship with his craft, but it turns out he's largely been focused on other things.

"We had a third child nine years ago and things got pretty busy at home. I was still gigging when he was born, and then I did a Creative Writing MA at Goldsmiths College, and although it was part-time, I spent a couple of years on that. It's where I began to write Just Ignore Him. I carried on writing that, and then Covid happened - everything closed, and when I put the book out, I couldn't do any book festivals or appearances.

"I got back on the horse a little bit when things started opening up, and then I thought sh*t, I'm 60 next year, I better get out there."

Speaking of which, does he find returning to the stage nerve-wracking, or is it more like riding a bike?

"It's a bit of both. I know it'll be alright. I've got loads of material, and ideas for more. I'm going to book an opening act this time, which isn't something I did on the last two tours, which meant I ended up on stage two hours a night, and that was too much - too much for the audience, never mind me.

"So I'll do 70 to So minutes, and it should be a good night and everyone will go home happy. But there are always nerves - and you look at the tour dates and think 'Oh my God that's a lot of travelling about.' So you can have negative thoughts, but I know that once I get on stage with the mic in my hand, I feel very at home. It's very much what I see myself as - a comedian."

The show's content is also very much about where he is now (he turns 60 next March) and will be "relatable for people of a certain age" he says.

"I've noticed my audience is growing up with me. I did a show recently in Milton Keynes and a phone went off, an alarm on a phone. I could see someone rummaging about, desperately trying to turn it off, and I said 'Is that alarm to remind you to take your medication?' And the woman said 'Yes, it is.' That got such a big laugh, but I knew that was my audience.''

That said, he's quick to point out "it's not an OAP's show," and he'll constantly be on the lookout for new material to help it evolve.

"You're always hoping something new comes along - a new thought or a new line you can add in. I find most things funny, and the process of accumulating material is to jot down anything you hear or see that's funny. But you must write it down or you won't remember it - the worst thing for a comedian is to think of something funny and then forget it.''

And while his three children provide an increasingly useful source of inspiration for material, he admits it's largely in terms of attitude rather than specific behaviour.

"I've got a routine I'm working on about kids parachuting and me nagging them about whether they've checked their 'chutes properly.''

He adopts a sullen teenager voice and says 'yeah yeah'.

"And then, when they jump out of the plane, they've forgotten to pack it. And of course they leave the door open behind them. I've just thought of that while we're talking, so I better write that down."

There he goes, thinking ahead as ever.

Alan Davies plays The Alexandra, Birmingham, on Monday 29 September and Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, on Friday 17 October

By Steve Adams