Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

The segment you’ll remember from Alan Davies’ first show in a decade is not the funniest bit. It’s when he speaks of being sexually abused by his father when he was young, the revelation first disclosed in his 2020 memoir Just Ignore Him.

This show is the first time he’s spoken about this on stage and when telling the story, the comedian breathes a little more heavily, his chest tightening – a mild form of PTSD. You could not want for a more visible signal of the lasting psychological damage caused, and it’s testament to Davies’ bravery that he puts himself through that every night. 

‘I can still do a gig,’ he reassures us, even though the self-confessed ‘people pleaser’ is clearly way out of his comfort zone of  universal observational comedy. But it’s important to him to get it out, and lets the stunned silence hold for a few moments, until commenting on just how unfunny this is.

Nevertheless, with a lifetime’s stand-up experience behind him, Davies masterfully balances these shocking moments with levity. There is, after all, something grimly funny about a man who collected reams of photographs of teenagers having sex also dryly chronicling golf stats. And even if the punchline spanning the two is not the best, Davies has built up so much credit with the audience that it lands.

Though impactful, this section about abuse is a relatively short part of this trauma sandwich of a show. Davies starts and ends on much more familiar territory, first by expressing incredulity that he could be fast-approaching 60. That’s considerably older than Christopher Lloyd was when he played Doc Brown in Back To The Future - and that the comic’s trademark mop of hair is now very grey confirms the linear progression of time.

The similar ‘Meldrew age’ of 58 is something of a social media trope, the age Richard Wilson started playing sitcomland’s most irascible pensioner, and Davies retreads this ground.  But then he morphs into a bitter old gammon whose life is dedicated to complaining about ULEZ – by way of illustrating the narrow-minded man he would never want to be – and the show kicks into gear. 

Later, he goes into the near-obligatory territory for men of his age – the prostate exam – but that humiliation is never not funny. And the material about Viagra might be a load of dick jokes, but they are classily constructed and hit the mark.

Davies also talks a lot about his children, the contrast between their happy family life and his own upbringing palpable, if unsaid. Though teenagers now, he worries about them: Will someone try to harm my daughter? Will she try to harm herself? Is my son watching porn? And if so, what sort?

Again the weighty issues are handled with the lightest of touches, the latter, for example, setting up a routine in which he imagines introducing realistic dialogue into sex scenes.

In some ways, Think Ahead feels like a transition for Davies, from the 1990s observational comedy that made his name to the more personally exposing 2020s style of stand-up. 

He seemed rushed in the hour slot – especially as a late start meant punters leaving early to make their next shows. But the tour version hitting the road this autumn should give the quintessential Everyman comedian more space to surprise audiences expecting  that fool from QI with the more affecting and powerful routines in his arsenal.

Review date: 10 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower