A DECADE has come and gone since Alan Davies flexed his stand-up muscles, but with his ever present fumblings as Stephen Fry’s right hand man on the much loved QI, he’s not been forgotten.

Taking to the blank stage, he spent the first part of the show bantering with the audience, making a point to discuss the Illuminating York event and having a friendly dig at the Yorkshire accent. “How do you feel when people think they can do the Yorkshire accent, by just putting ‘tut’ in front of everything?” he wondered.

Friendly banter is the backbone to Davies’s act, which features more grumbling and cynicism about how life has changed, rather than the serious hardships you might expect from a show entitled Life Is Pain.

His Essex Everyman status, natural charm and obvious enjoyment in being on stage carry his stories of life. He chooses a couple of “comfortable” subjects – how having children changes your life; how social media is a minefield for the generation that remembers with great nostalgia the time when “we only had one telephone in the house” – before dipping into the darker side.

Discussing the evolution of the porn world, he remembers how in the good old days. “All we had were catalogue models….nowadays I feel like I’m watching a crime scene and feel like I should be calling the police!,” he says.

The whole show was a laugh a minute and Davies’s unique take on some rather standard subjects made for an extremely successful return to the stage.

- Gemma Rossi