Jonathan Creek or just Alan?
It's tough not being Jonathan Creek. "There are people at my shows who have never seen a stand-up comic before, and I have to deal with that and win them over," he says. "Stand-up is my little place where I can go and not have to do all that," he says. "Anyway, most people don't want me to be Jonathan Creek on stage.

On his childhood schooling
"It really screwed me. "I loathed the place. Arson was an option. Bancroft's was really academic, sending kids to Oxbridge. But it wasn't working for me. It might have helped if my teachers had asked me: 'Are you all right?' But they just said: "Detention!" So he preferred to skip classes and go shoplifting... He says he really didn't agree with the school's arrogance at "being in the top two per cent of the population."

Alan Davies: Ladies man!
An early interest in the girls helped Alan ignore the trauma of school. Dating at the tender age of 14 he jokes he won't spill the beans about losing his cherry because he "might be prosecuted!" He confesses: "I've done my fair share of shagging". From University to the Edinburgh festival there were plenty of opportunities! "You're supposed to drop your pants at every opportunity at university, but the funny thing was I had more sex before I got there." At the Edinburgh Festival "you can make up for an entire youth. A few years ago, there was a different woman every night scenario."

His big break?
His first unusual routine, aged 22 managed to break the audiences. "It started because I had a bee in my bonnet about an animal rights group that had bombed the wrong building at Bristol University. Then I read about the US Navy using dolphins for bombing missions because they were very intelligent. So I wrote a routine asking why animal rights people didn't train dolphins to do their bombing and I did a whole thing about being a dolphin, which got a laugh. It was about seven or eight minutes long and got me booked at every club I went to."

Did you know?

Alan's Abbey National adverts paid off the mortgage on his three-bedroom house in Canonbury, Islington, London

He owns three sports cars and a motorcycle

He paid £30,000 at a charity auction for the original Big Brother House diary room chair.

As well as doing dramas, Alan is a regular on shows like Have I got News for you and QI: "Quite Interesting" game show hosted by Stephen Fry

Alan also writes a fortnightly column, "The Game" in the pull-out section of the Times on Mondays.

Find out more about Alan

Fan website
BBC: Alan Davies profile