No more Mr Nice Guy

Where a flying car failed, an unknown writer from Vancouver has succeeded. Tonight, Alan Davies makes his West End acting debut in Morris Panych's cinder-black comedy Auntie and Me.

Davis's lead turn in BBC1's Jonathan Creek, not to mention other TV work such as Bob And Rose and those Abbey National ads, have made this 36-year-old comic a familiar face even to those who've never seen his standup. It's no surprise to learn that the producers of Art tried to hire him. But who'd have imagined him playing the lead in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

'I was flattered they asked me,' says Davies, his trademark curls trimmed but not obliterated. 'I was bored, I wasn't doing anything and I'd loved the film as a kid. I met the director and sang a few numbers with a pianist.

But after about half an hour, I started thinking it was going to be one of those Noel Edmonds Gotchas or Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out. I went home and said: "Oh God, what am I thinking of!"' He shudders.

Davies e-mailed the show to make sure the matter went no further, then asked producer David Johnson to help him find something original. The result was Panych's play, which Davies tried out at Edinburgh last summer: 'I wanted a chance to cock it up and not be exposed,' he admits. In fact, the reception was strong enough to prompt this London run. 'We packed it out up there, and that wasn't just because I'm on the telly.'

Nevertheless, Davies's status as the acme of likeability brings some saving graces to a character, Kemp, who tends his dying aunt (Margaret Tyzack) in the keen expectation of a big fat inheritance. The milk of human kindness has curdled here. 'Kemp's not very nice,' agrees Davies. ' The old woman's not very nice either. I met the writer, he said: "Listen, these two people, they aren't very nice."'

But what makes the play intriguing is its blend of out-and-out comedy - there's a preposterous auntie-killing machine - alongside a grim view of loneliness and interdependence. Davies, who studied drama at Kent University, knows the play lives or dies according to his ability to mix the two. But he's happy it can squeeze into the mainstream.

'I don't think there's such a thing as standard West End fare. There's just a load of producers and a load of theatres and nobody knows what to put on. They go from Shopping And F**king to Arsenic And Old Lace and back again. But it is daunting to be on here. There are a lot of good people about. It's not the Edinburgh Fringe, where, let's face it, 95 per cent of what goes on is rubbish.'

The stage may have finally lured him, but Davis isn't abandoning the small screen: there are three new episodes of Jonathan Creek already in the can, with three more to film later in the year - 'by the time you get to a fourth series, they pay you really well'.

But he hopes Auntie and Me will help people realise he can do more than one thing. 'Every time I appear in something, I don't want people to say: "Oh, there's Jonathan Creek" for the rest of my life.'