IN HIS OWN WORDS: Alan Davies

Alan Davies, 50, has starred as Jonathan Creek (9pm, BBC1) since 1997, and has been a regular on QI (Friday, 10pm, BBC2) since 2003. Here’s what he’s had to say about life and laughter…

On his appearance: ‘I walk weirdly, I’m a bit overweight and 20 years older than I want to be, so I can’t stand the sight of myself. The only time I look in a mirror is to see how badly my teeth need a clean.’ On the reason he went into comedy:

‘I was always an attention-seeker. My mother made me what I am before she died [when he was six]. I wanted to make her laugh.’

On panel shows: ‘I do 16 QIs a year – I think that’s enough. I did a lot of panel shows 20 years ago. You can’t do them all your life or you go a bit mad.’

On mistaken identity: ‘I’m called Jonathan Davies quite a lot, which is odd, because he played rugby for Wales.’

On his favourite comedian: ‘The best comedy I’ve ever seen was Dave Allen; I was in physical pain. He told me, “Yeah, you have to be careful, or you’ll hurt people.”’ On his wife, Katie, and their three

children: ‘For a long time, I believed that only mad people could be happy. I’ve since realised that to be happy, you need to simultaneously love and be loved… My marriage and family life is the most important thing to me.’ On regret: ‘If you look back over your life, there’ll be things that make you shut your eyes and weep – “Oh my God, I did that”, “I said that”, “Argh!” – but don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s done, and tomorrow is a new day.’