Greg Davies threatens ‘awful vengeance’ over Inbetweeners snub

The thing that you don’t know about Greg Davies is that he’s bloody massive. 

I know that sounds stupid, but trust me, until you see him in the towering flesh, you’ve no idea quite how big he really is.

So when I met Greg for the first time at Bafta HQ ahead of the TV Awards this Sunday, I rather gormlessly said, ‘You’re bloody massive’, which isn’t the traditional way to greet an interviewee. 

Luckily for me, Greg doesn’t just have the biggest legs in showbiz; it turns out he’s got the biggest heart as well, so rather than scolding me (as would have been his right), he laughed off my frankly inane opener. 

Indeed, during our 30-minute chat, it quickly became clear that, despite playing stern authoritarians like the Taskmaster and Mr Gilbert on The Inbetweeners, Greg is essentially a big kid. 

Although there are at least some people who have to be careful around him, specifically those working on The Inbetweeners. 

Why? Well, because they’ve reportedly just started work on a new Inbetweeners movie, and while Greg knows ‘talks are afoot’, he doesn’t know if his character Mr Gilbert will return, and he’s not happy about it. 

‘Oh, my God,’ he yelled. ‘If I end up not being in that movie, there are people I won’t name, who I will spend the rest of my life taking down, and the awful vengeance I will reap on those people.’

This pantomime fury has become Greg’s trademark in recent years, although his mock indignation isn’t something he’s planning to bring to the TV Baftas on Sunday; instead, he’s bringing what can only be described as genetically ingrained pessimism. 

‘I feel fine about [the TV Baftas],’ he said before adding: ‘I would say that in my family, generally, our approach to life is to presume everything is going to be a disaster.’

‘My mum taught us that, and so I’m going into it thinking it’s going to be an absolute catastrophe from start to finish, and then I’m hoping, as usual, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.’

Greg’s the first to admit this is ‘a very negative way of thinking’, and he doesn’t recommend it to anyone. Sadly, for him, it’s apparently ‘cellular’ and so ‘ingrained into him’ that he always presumes disaster is on the horizon. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mention of disaster (especially in light of the recent Film Bafta debacle) did pique my interest, but before I could even ask what catastrophe he was expecting, Greg cut me off. 

‘The truth is, everybody at Bafta is very nice, and everybody going to the Baftas is excited about possibly winning something,’ he laughed. ‘Any negativity is internal and family-based.’

In fact, the only scandal he would talk about is how his show, Taskmaster, hasn’t got a nomination this year, which also quickly turned into him making fun of his co-star and onscreen assistant, Little Alex Horne.

‘I don’t think [Alex] will even be in the room this year, which delights me and will be one of the key motivations for me,’ he grinned. ‘Knowing that I am hosting a show that he’s not even invited to, not even as a guest, he’ll have to be watching his little caravan.’

Probing a little further, I did ask Greg how much of his onscreen animosity towards Alex was real, and he joked (maybe it was hard to tell) that he actually does get wound up by his co-star’s gags, especially during the opening monologue, which Greg thinks might be a deliberate act.

‘It always genuinely irritates me,’ he explained. ‘I think he deliberately sits down and thinks, “I know how to get Greg into character,” and it’s to properly wind him up. So he says things that have no structure, no punch line, often, no comic premise and it genuinely annoys me.’

So how does Greg get payback? Well, if you’ve ever been annoyed by the arbitrary scoring in Taskmaster, you’ve got Alex to blame. 

‘[The scoring] is my revenge,’ Greg giggled. ‘It’s the little things he doesn’t like. When I give two contestants the same score, if you look into his eyes, then his little brain was on fire with rage, because he wants things put into boxes.’

Of course, you don’t sit down with Greg Davies, the most famous teacher turned comedian in the UK and not ask him to tell you one of his infamous teaching stories. 

After all, his Graham Norton ‘faecal Jackson Pollock’ story is a thing of legend, and the comedian was happy to share an untold gem.

‘I once took six boys to the headmaster’s office because I caught them smoking marijuana behind my drama studio, and they were all really high,’ he explained.  

‘They had a shopping bag full of weed, I said, “I’ve got to report you,” and they were all really nice about it. They were like, “No problem, sir, we understand. We deserve this.”

‘I took to the Head’s office, and just by chance, the Home Economics teacher happened to come into the room while we were waiting for the Head, and she opened up the bag, and it was rosemary. They’d been sold a bag of kitchen herbs, and convinced themselves they were stoned. ‘

‘They all got laughed out of the room because they’d spent all their pocket money on a kitchen herd.

‘And last time we were filming a series of the cleaner, the head of security at one of the shoot sites was one of those boys now, a 43-year-old father of three!’

Tune into the Bafta Television Awards with P&O Cruises on Sunday, May 10, at 7pm on BBC One and iPlayer

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