Monoray acquires new 'startlingly honest' memoir from Alan Davies

Monoray (an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group) has acquired a "brave and startlingly honest" memoir by Alan Davies.

Publisher Jake Lingwood acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Zoe Ross at United Agents, and White Male Stand-Up will be published as a hardback in September 2025.

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

Lingwood said of the acquisition: "Just Ignore Him blew me away with its thoughtful honesty and skilful execution by Alan Davies, a talented and instinctive writer. White Male Stand-Up takes that same honesty but applies it artfully to Alan’s adulthood and to the worlds of comedy and TV with no subject off limits."

Davies commented: "A question I sometimes put to irate hecklers at comedy gigs is: ‘What is it that’s really bothering you?’ Writing this book has turned that inquiry on myself."