On the Waterstones Best Books of 2025 List

'Davies has done it again, damn him. Irritatingly good. Maddeningly funny. Annoyingly fine.' STEPHEN FRY

'Emotional, entertaining and startlingly honest. I was totally engrossed.' AMY LIPTROT, author of The Outrun.

'Really honest and really funny' Lorraine Kelly

Following Just Ignore Him, the bestselling memoir of his traumatic childhood, White Male Stand-Up is what happened next to Alan Davies.

It's the story of how he threw himself into the joyous and idealistic world of stand-up comedy, leading to a television career, but how echoes from the past, and the thought that everyone might prefer it if he disappeared, saw him repeatedly dismantle everything around him.

With a cast of well-known comedians, actors, agents and producers, Alan awkwardly navigates his life from the camaraderie of the comedy circuit via life-changing fame as TV's Jonathan Creek, to the unwelcome realisation that most people know him from a bank advert and think he's had a perm.

Often very funny and always honest, this very personal memoir is a rich tale of uplifting highs and painful lows, of success and excess, and the dangers of both. How Alan Davies survived it - and very nearly didn't - is the compelling tale of White Male Stand Up.

'Reading White Male Stand-up made me nostalgic for the 90s/00s. I could feel the strong friendships and also the pain. Alan Davies is so perceptive on the drive to success and the seeking of an alternate family. This book is emotional, entertaining and startlingly honest. I was totally engrossed.'

'Davies has done it again, damn him. Irritatingly good. Maddeningly funny. Annoyingly fine.'

Alan Davies is a comedian, writer and actor, best known for starring in the hit BBC series Jonathan Creek and for his regular appearances as a panellist on QI.
In 2016 he took a Creative Writing MA at Goldsmiths College (Univ of London) which led to the publication of his childhood memoir, Just Ignore Him (Little, Brown 2020). The book, widely praised for its honesty and humour while sensitively dealing with issues such as bereavement and child abuse.