Alan Davies on the return of As Yet Untitled...

Alan Davies returns to Dave next month with As Yet Untitled, in which four comedians are invited to join him around a table and chat, coming up with a title for the episode from the conversation. Here he talks about the show

What can what can we expect from series seven of As Yet Untitled?

Well, we're in a beautiful room at the Battersea Arts Centre, which is very nice. We have the smaller old table so some of the original intimacy of the show’s returned. The last series was in The Roundhouse, which is an amazing room but it’s quite foreboding when it's not full and has a distanced audience and guests. So we have a bigger audience and it's likely that half of them have got Covid but we just don't know.

We have one or two new guests, one or two returning guests and one or two old hands, and people seem very keen to be here. We like to have new people on who’ve not been on telly before.

I get to meet so many different people and I really do favour comedians over all other people.

Who are you most excited about having on?

We have Sue Perkins who’s never been on before and I love her. I like seeing people like I haven't seen for ages. We have Jessica Hynes who’s been on before and who I worked with over 20 years ago on Bob And Rose.

Patrick Kielty is on - last time he told a story about doing a corporate event with Neil Armstrong – that’s a big name in human history  – at some country hotel. He was a test pilot on a rocket to the moon and could have died every day. But at the end of this event, there was an offer to go back by helicopter and Neil Armstrong wouldn’t get in. He said those things are too dangerous! That was very funny.

We have Al Murray who makes being spectacularly funny look like the easiest thing in the world. I said he’s one of the greatest comedians in this country in the last 20 years. And he looked at me like "Am I?" Yeah, you are actually.

But I don't envy the edit because sometimes it's just chaos. I like it when they all start talking at one another, which they can being around a table because they’re all looking at one another.

Unlike in a panel show when you're all facing outwards?

Yes or even if you're on Graham Norton’s show and you're on the sofa. Graham likes it if the guests start talking but it's not set up quite like this, it’s more set up for telly.

So our director has a bit of a task to get us all in shot but I think it works well. I wouldn't change it. This is the way to do it.

Is it a bit like when you're organising a dinner party and working out who will get on?

I'm not really in the casting. They like to check if there’s anybody I absolutely won’t have and there are one or two! And there are also one or two they won’t have. But then there are hundreds of people to ask, and hundreds who have been on already.

It's getting a balance of age, gender and diversity. You've got eight tables to fill and it’s worse than a wedding.

Has anyone not got on?

One or two people are crazy but one of the things I like about the comedy world is it can handle any amount of mental instability. Most comedy clubs have to do that every weekend.

I’ll get people's biogs and frequently - a couple of the guests on one of the shows are dyslexic, another’s dyspraxic, someone in another show had ADHD. All the comedians I grew up with were all undiagnosed. Nobody knew.

Ricky Grover, who’s one of my favourite comedians, said: ‘I missed dyslexia by a year when I was at school. They had it in the year below. I was just thick!’  I find that quite interesting.

Now the biogs are full of diagnoses. It’s sort of reassuring in a way; we live in a slightly more caring world.

What difference does having a proper audience make?

There’s an atmosphere and no silence in the room. One or two comedians think about the audience and hearing them laugh but what's quite nice on this show is that they start to forget that they're there and they're talking to one another. So I think the audience watches differently, it’s not like watching a set at a comedy club.

Some of them are really good at telling stories, which is very engaging. We don't have any bores. If a bore slips through, that’s unusual.

Some people in life they're very good at pulling the conversation back to themselves. Here you don't need to do that. I will ask you about yourself and you will have time and space to speak of yourself. Then it'll be someone else's go, and people are quite respectful of one another.

You have a lot of mates in the comedy world. Do you like them coming on?

Oh it’s always nice to see people; one or two of my oldest friends come on.

It was really nice having Harry Hill on last series, he’s super funny. He's always reluctant to go on things because he regards Harry Hill as a character. What would Harry say to… this question? Break it gently to him, but Harry Hill’s remarkably close to himself! Despite the outlandish collars.

And actually, Harry Hill or anyone can fit in around this table. Al Murray was even less comfortable than Harry because if he came as the Pub Landlord, he’d dominate the conversation and be quite rude to everybody - and then he’d be appalled they’d taken offence. The whole conversation would be totally different…

One of his stories was about a time he complained in a hotel and he says he never complains. I thought that's where the Pub Landlord comes from. This guy says whatever he thinks, and the person who plays him never says what he thinks. It's quite interesting to see the root of one of our great comedians.

What's been your favourite title that you've come up with for the show?

I remember one, which was when Matt Lucas was on and we were talking about doing a show - I think the Fast Show or Reeves and Mortimer in Hammersmith Apollo. The place was packed and they hadn't properly sorted out the opening of the show so they were running a bit late.

The audience started getting a bit irate, and when they finally went on at the beginning of the show, someone shouted out, ’35 quid for this?’ And that made me laugh so much. So that was the title of the show: ’35 quid for this.’

Is there anyone you'd like to get on that hasn't yet?

I'd love to have Lee Evans on, that's a bit of a pipe dream. He and I gigged together a lot in the old days but he’s retired. I know his agent and I emailed him to ask but he said Lee’s in America. He's got a house over there and winters there.

I just know he has so many funny stories, they just fall out of him.

You’ve given quite a few people their first TV break haven’t you?

Yes, Lou Sanders back in series 1 and one of Katherine Ryan's first appearances on UK television too. They’re two fantastic comedians. It’s one of the things I really like about the show.

• Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled starts on Dave on March 14, with the box set then dropping on UKTV Play. Interview supplied by UKTV press office.

Episode 1: Lara Ricote, Jamali Maddix, Josh Jones, Sue Perkins
Episode 2: Jason Byrne, Fathia El-Ghorri, Helen Bauer, Alex Jones
Episode 3: Stephen Mangan, Isy Suttie, Jordan Gray, Seann Walsh
Episode 4: Patrick Kielty, Jessica Hynes, Amy Gledhill, Emmanuel Sonubi
Episode 5: Russell Kane, London Hughes, Al Murray, Fern Brady
Episode 6: Jo Brand, Ola Labib, Jack Rooke, Darren Harriott
Episode 7: Matt Edmondson, Archie Maddocks, Steph McGovern, Ed Byrne
Episode 8: Rachel Parris, Ellie Taylor, Johnny Vegas, Josh Pugh

Published: 24 Feb 2023