Why the BBC is up the creek: Alan Davies, returning

Outspoken: Comedian Alan Davies is never afraid to make a point

Sitting in the make-up bus on his first day back at work as Jonathan Creek, Alan Davies glanced around and saw an extremely ugly looking object.
‘It was a polystyrene head with dark grey hair wefts on it,’ he recalls. ‘I didn’t remember there being a tramp character in the script and I wondered what saddo was going to have to put those in his hair.’
Turns out it was him. For while Alan and his television alter ego may have once had gorgeous ‘nut brown golden’ hair, as he describes it, now it is a different matter. Both of them are in their late 40s and, if you were being kind, you might describe the colour of their hair as platinum.
Anyway, it did not take much more than a few grey strands to turn Jonathan Creek’s hair back to its bouncy best, and once Alan put on the detective’s famous duffle coat (which he had stored in a cupboard at home) he was straight back into the character he last played three years ago.
Now the super sleuth, a magic tricks creator who specialises in solving seemingly supernatural deaths with a comedy twist, is back not only for a special edition this Easter (this will be its third special since the show ended in 2003), but also a short series that will start filming later this year.
Alan, whose main profile since the show ended has been as a permanent panellist on comedy quiz QI, says he could not be happier.
‘Jonathan hadn’t been killed off, so there was always a chance the show could come back,’ he says.
‘But the writer David Renwick stopped it when it was in its prime because he had run out of ideas for mysteries, so a new series really came out of the blue.

 

Sidekick: Alan Davies as Jonathan Creek and Sheridan Smith as Joey Ross in the new series

‘I was really pleased. In the old days I used to worry about whether I should be doing  the show.
‘Was it wise? Would it be good for me in the long run? What other roles could I get? But since then I’ve discovered it doesn’t really work like that.
‘You can’t really plan your career in this business. It tends to go around in cycles. You can be in demand or off the map and it’s not really in your control, so you just have to enjoy it and be grateful when things come your way.’

 

The 47-year-old Essex-born father of two, who started out as a stand-up comedian, admits he is still bitterly disappointed that his comedy Whites, in which he starred as a chef, was canned after one series in 2010 despite getting good reviews and ratings.
At the time he took to Twitter to vent his fury at the ‘shoddy’ way the BBC had axed the show.
Today, even though the BBC has brought back Jonathan Creek and screens QI, and is therefore his principal employer, Alan still doesn’t mince his words.
He’s never been the type to — even though he has had to apologise to Tory peer Lord McAlpine for an untrue allegation he tweeted to his 440,000 followers and, it emerged this week, may still be forced to pay £200,000 to make amends.
This time, he just lowers his voice a little to me in a conspiratorial whisper so that the BBC apparatchiks who have organised the interview don’t hear.
‘It’s impossible to fathom what the thought process is,’ he says of the BBC. ‘The people who commission shows quite often haven’t produced shows or written shows or made shows in the past.

 

All star cast: Sheridan Smith and Alan Davies alongside Rik Mayall and Joanna Lumley

‘It used to be that people came from the business. Now they have careers in television; they go from being a PA to an assistant to being in charge.
‘They don’t even talk to you; it’s impossible to get a meeting with them. So that means it’s impossible to know what they want.
‘They brought Shooting Stars back. It was hilarious and won a comedy award and then they canned it.
‘After The Office they only wanted non-audience shows, but now Miranda and Mrs Brown’s Boys are popular they want more of that. They don’t seem to understand that it doesn’t really work like that.
‘The people in charge are not people with an eye for comedy writing or experience in comedy writing. ‘I was really baffled when they ended Whites. They said: “We love all of  you in the show and now we are firing you.”
‘When I told David Renwick, he said: “Welcome to my world. It’s like Kafka. You don’t know who is in charge or what is going on.” ’
He believes that Jonathan Creek was mainly brought back because of its continuing popularity around the world. At the moment Alan is getting lots of emails from Russia.
‘It sells all over the world and the DVD sales are so huge it’s a no-brainer when money is tight,’ he says.
But that is not to say the BBC will be splashing the cash with the new production.
‘People always ask about the windmill that Jonathan lives in, but the truth is we haven’t shot in a windmill for years,’ he says. ‘It’s too expensive. We can’t even afford to use a TV studio.

 

Fresh faced: Alan Davies in the fourth series of Jonathan Creek in 2003

‘I don’t even know what TV studios are used for now; if they are too expensive for us, who is using them?
‘Now we shoot on an industrial estate in Esher. It’s not a studio, it’s not soundproofed and it’s freezing.
‘The way David gets around it in the script is by using a disused school, which is derelict. That means you don’t have to dress the set up; you just have to find a derelict building.
‘When I sit down and watch Downton Abbey I think that they must have spent more on their tea sets than we spent on our entire budget. The budget has been hacked to bits and everyone is on the same money we were on in the mid-Nineties.
‘It’s not that we don’t get paid; we get well paid and we like it. But it’s a strange time in television.
They have got a lot of buildings now, but they should try making some programmes.’
Money may have been tight; but the cast list is still impressive.
For the Easter special Alan is joined by Joanna Lumley, as a woman who sees her husband’s dead body in a room before it vanishes; Nigel Planer (the vanishing corpse); Rik Mayall, who reprises his role as DI Gideon Pryke; and the ubiquitous Sheridan Smith, who returns as Alan’s sidekick.
Sheridan took over from Julia Sawalha, whom Alan dated for several years after meeting on the show. He is now happily married to writer Katie Maskell and they have two young children.
‘Everything changes when you have a family,’ he sighs.
‘I am quite happy now just to go on tour and spend three days a week working and then being  able to come home and be with my family.’
The storyline in the new Jonathan Creek is as maze-like as ever. Alan admits he has long given up trying to work out what the ending will be.
‘The idea of trying to work it out as you go along is a pointless exercise,’ he says. ‘I’ve learned that through the years; I never work out the ending until the end.’

 

Old flames: Alan Davies dated his former co-star Julia Sawalha, who played sidekick Carla Borrego

He believes, though, that a 1998 episode, The Problem At Gallows Gate, in which a man jumps off a roof to fake suicide, inspired the makers of BBC1’s Sherlock  series last year.
In the final episode, Sherlock Holmes, played by Benedict  Cumberbatch, was seen jumping from a hospital roof, and then sprawled apparently lifeless on  the ground. Yet a few scenes  later viewers see he is alive, because he has used trickery to foil his enemies.
Davies says Sherlock used the same idea as Creek’s producers.  ‘He landed on a removable panel covering a safety net stretched across a trench dug in the ground,’ he explains.
He insists that, despite cost cuts, he is certain the viewers will still enjoy the new Creek series.  ‘The good thing about David [who also wrote One Foot In The Grave, Hot Metal and Love Soup] is that he will never let standards drop,’ says Alan.
‘You can still make great stuff without loads of money.
‘I would love it to appeal to a new audience. I get emails from younger people who watch me on QI and then discover me on Jonathan Creek and write saying, “You’re a legend.”
‘I like that.’