Fresh from his success in The Inbetweeners, comic Greg Davies will be playing for laughs with his stand-up show, Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog. The former teacher explains all to Diana Pilkington

Greg Davies enjoying his success

To legions of TV viewers, he’s the terrifying and somewhat sadistic head of sixth form, Mr Gilbert, in The Inbetweeners.

And despite being an old hand at stand-up, Greg Davies admits he has the hit E4 show about smutty schoolboys to thank for the presence of a large proportion of the audience on his current tour.

“I think it’s one of the main, if not the main, reason people come out see me and I’m very grateful. I was chuffed to be part of it anyway. It’s so liked by so many people and it feels a real privilege.”

At 6ft 8in, the 40-year-old cuts an imposing figure on stage – and at the front of the classroom. But in his own years as a teacher – a career he pursued for more than a decade – he insists he never made children quake as his telly alter ego Phil Gilbert does. “He’s kind of the teacher I always fantasised about being because children are absolutely petrified of him. But as my ex-pupils regularly confirm, I wasn’t remotely fearful. When Gilbert walks into a room everyone s***s themselves but I’m not convinced I had that effect. I think they just thought, ‘Here comes that depressed bloke again’.”

Davies’ bitterness at teaching sometimes creeps into his routine, but he stresses he has ‘great memories and great friends’ from that period. His heart just wasn’t in it. “If you’re doing a job and you secretly want to do a different job, you start to blame the job. I was blaming the teaching for the fact I wasn’t performing. I really felt I needed to follow a comedy career.

“I was a drama teacher, so I had the opportunity to show off in front of a captive audience. I essentially did 13 years of stand-up. Whether my pupils would agree that I was remotely interesting or not is another question.”

Fans clearly find him interesting and his sell-out show, which garnered an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination, has been extended by 52 dates. Its name, Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog, comes from a real-life incident on holiday at a remote mountain cottage, where Davies and a friend took action when they found their path blocked.

“For reasons I won’t bore you with we had a catapult and a bag of cheeseballs in the car and we thought that would be the best way to move the dog from our way,” he says.

The incident, in which he stresses no dogs were actually hurt, turned out to be a clear jumping-off point from which to launch his show. “I thought, ‘That was the most I’ve laughed in about 12 months, why would that be?’

“It’s trying to work out why we forget sometimes how important the silly moments of joy are, that’s what the show is, it’s just looking at my life in those terms.”

The tour is giving him the chance to explore parts of the country he has never visited. And, ruined body clock aside, he is relishing the thrill that comes with live performance. “I rather like finding out instantly whether you’ve been successful or not. It’s a cliché really, but the fact that every gig is different, it’s a live event and you’re with a different group of individuals every night – you’re one of many variables, but I find that exciting.”

As well as performing dates on his tour well into June, and getting set to film a ‘brief’ appearance in the highly-anticipated Inbetweeners film, Davies can also be seen in BBC Two improvisation show Fast And Loose.

“It’s off the cuff. It was a nice bridge between stand-up and acting. I very much want to do more acting but at the same time I’m loving doing the tour.

“I don’t know – I just want to stick a finger in every pie going at the moment. I’m having a ball if I’m honest.”