Alan Davies on Stephen Fry

I love QI, and I love the Alan Davies/Stephen Fry relationship which is the main comic thread of the show. But I'd never thought of it as sexual as this Times article suggests.

Does anyone else think they secretly fancy each other?

“I’m not as much of an idiot as I appear on QI,” Davies says. “But everybody speaks to me as if I am, and it’s really annoying. And Stephen isn’t really that clever, either. People often say to me, ‘Ooh, does he really know all that stuff?’ Of course not! No, it’s all on the cards.”

The chemistry between Fry and Davies has been described as sexually charged, but I suppose you could see a father-son aspect in it, too, if you wanted. They get along well, he says, but tend not to see much of each other socially. “We don’t have much in common,” he says. “Apart from cricket. But we meet up every year for QI, and it’s really good fun.”

Only once, in six years of the show, have the pair had a proper argument. “He was saying the woodlouse is basically the same as a prawn,” Davies explains. “And I said, ‘You’d never eat a woodlouse.’ And he said, ‘Yes, I would,’ and I said, ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ and he said, ‘Yes, I would.’” Eventually, Davies said, “Well, you might, but I’d rather eat my own poo.” Fry responded that there were six million different types of bacteria in faeces, so that was frankly a rather foolish attitude to take. “And I thought, ‘Well, you can f*** off, then.’” Afterwards, Fry came to his dressing room. “He said, ‘Are you upset?’ And I said, ‘I am a bit.’ And he said, ‘Sorry,’ and I said, ‘It’s fine.’”