“We’ve got two small children, so don’t do anything other than go to the park,” jokes Alan Davies ruefully, over the reason he’s not returned to his old stomping ground on the Kent coast in recent months.

In the mid-1980s, the young Alan was a drama student at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus, but chose to live in digs in Whitstable where he was pals with the Harris brothers, who now run the Michelin-listed Sportsman in nearby Seasalter.

A visit to the Sportsman often lured Alan back before the demands of family life set in, but these days it is work that brings the comedian and Jonathan Creek actor to Kent most regularly, be it TV – QI recently filmed an episode at the university – or his stand-up, as is the case this week.

Alan’s Little Victories tour, which is very autobiographical, returns to Chatham’s Central Theatre on Thursday, March 12.

And he enjoys the memories that come flooding back when he’s in the county.

“I did a four-year drama course between 1984 and 1988,” remembers Alan of his uni days.

“I wasn’t mad about the course – I had one good teacher in the classics department for a term, Dr Shirley Barlow, she was the best teacher – but the best thing for me was doing lots of plays with friends and getting into doing comedy, staying up late at night with other comedians, going to Whitstable Labour Club on Saturday night and the Neptune pub on the beach.”

It was at Whitstable Labour Club where Alan performed his first stand-up, though it wasn’t the political comedy you might have expected from a student in the 1980s.

“It was mainly about living in Whitstable – in those days there wasn’t even a cashpoint, so if you had no money on a Friday then you were screwed for the weekend,” laughs Alan, who turns 49 this weekend.

“I did a bit about the Cadbury’s Flake advert. In those days it was beautiful, scantily-clad girls eating a Flake in a very phallic way, so I unwrapped a Flake with a condom on it, because we were all being told about safe sex then.

“I dropped all the props when I went into stand-up proper.”

The show that brings the comedian to Chatham this week and will see him return to Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre in November, looks back over Alan’s life experiences going back to childhood and brings us up to date on his present circumstances, including seeing his father develop Alzheimer’s.

Many fans have asked if the autobiographical Little Victories is a cathartic process for Alan, a bit like a public therapy session?

He says: “I’m not sure if the specific content is helpful in terms of mental health or emotional wellbeing, but the freedom to express yourself is very good for me. While I’m very proud of my involvement in QI, QI is not my show in that I’m not involved in the research or edit, but in stand-up you’ve got a point of view. It’s not a counselling substitute but it’s great to have a place to say what you think rather than going round boiling with frustration!”

MY `GROTTY' HANG-OUT

Alan’s friends at the Sportsman pub in Seasalter, near Whitstable, have recently celebrated it being crowned the UK’s No.1 gastropub.

This despite owners Stephen and Philip Harris – who is an old mucker of Alan’s from his student days in Whitstable – describing it as a ‘grotty rundown pub by the sea’!

The brothers picked up the award at the Budweiser Budvar Top 50 Gastropub Awards last month.

Self-taught Stephen, who took on the pub 15 years ago, is also the Sportsman’s head chef and described the pub as ‘grotty and rundown’ on its Twitter biography.

He said: “I called it that because I get fed up with people telling me it is grotty. I figured if I tell them that first then they can’t be disappointed when they visit!

“The point is that some people think it’s a dump but I think it’s beautiful. We don’t make out to be anything special but we just keep going. We’ve got a good team.”

The Shepherd Neame-owned pub, which has held a Michelin star since 2008, beat pubs from Somerset and East Yorkshire into second and third places.

TOUR DETAILS

Alan Davies’ Little Victories is at Chatham’s Central Theatre on Thursday, March 12, at 8pm. Tickets cost £25. Visit www.tickets.medway.gov.uk or call 01634 338338.

It comes to Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre on Sunday, November 15, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £25. Visit www.marlowetheatre.com or call 01227 787787.