BUMBLING yet shrewd comedian, Jonathan Creek star and perennial panelist on BBC2’s QI, the shaggy-haired Alan Davies will bring his first stand-up tour for more than a decade to York Barbican on November 2.

Tickets for Life Is Pain have gone on sale at £25 on 0844 854 2757, online at yorkbarbican.co.uk and at the Barbican box office, open Monday to Friday, 10am to 2pm.

The one-time children’s entertainer first took the title role of Jonathan Creek in 1996 and David Renwick’s show, winner of the BAFTA Award for Best Drama, went on to run for 14 years.

The part of the magic trick designer who solves mysteries was created originally for Nicholas Lyndhurst, who turned it down.

Hugh Laurie took over, only to pull out, and Rick Mayall and Angus Deayton apparently were approached too but then the producers spotted Davies rehearsing in a church hall.

“I’m not really sure why they asked me but I think they were after somebody who had a thoughtful manner and who would underplay the role,” he said later.

He continues his permanent posting on the panel for QI, the game show hosted by Stephen Fry, and you may recall he appeared in Gurinder Chadha’s British coming-of-age comedy Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging in 2008.

On the comedy circuit, he has become an Edinburgh Fringe Festival veteran, having won the Edinburgh Festival Critics Award for Comedy in 1994. His 2002 show, Auntie And Me, subsequently ran for four months in the West End.

Davies grew up in Loughton, on the border of Essex and London’s East End, but when he was only six years old his mother Shirley died of leukaemia.

“She had a great sense of humour and so did my gran on my mum’s side,” he says.

He always wanted to be an actor and at 16, a drama lecturer at Loughton College suggested he might consider taking an A-level in theatre studies. Although not completely convinced at first, after a few sessions Davies was hooked.

By December that year he was dressed in pink tights playing the pantomime dame, and subsequently he studied a drama degree at the University of Kent with every intention of working as an actor until… “Professional comics started appearing at the uni. Then one night I decided to take the plunge,” he recalls.

“It was at Whitstable Labour Club supporting some friends who were playing in a band. It went down so well that I thought this is too good not to do.

“I just liked it straight away and everybody laughed. I was catatonic with fear, but you go from that to this roaring adrenaline rush in one second.”

No doubt Davies will experience that rush once more when he returns to the tour circuit this autumn after his long hiatus. Tickets can be booked on 0844 854 2757, online at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office, open Monday to Friday, 10am to 2pm.