Jim Davidson declared bankrupt

London (Reuters): Comedian Jim Davidson has been declared bankrupt over a 700,000 pound tax bill, his spokeswoman confirmed. Davidson, 52, told the BBC he had been forced into bankruptcy after HM Revenue and Customs refused his request for a 12-month break from payments.'The tax man has, for reasons best known to himself, pulled the rug out from under my feet,'' he said on the BBC News Web site yesterday. ''I am still pretty solvent,'' he added. ''I just can't pay 700,000 pounds right now.'' Davidson, who lives in Dubai, had been paying 400,000 pounds a year to settle 1.4 million pounds of tax arrears, earning the money from performances back in the UK. But he said he and his manager had decided this could not continue. ''You cannot keep going back to the same theatres,'' he said.

''I don't want the tax man to put me in a position where my career looks as if it is failing, because it isn't.'' Davidson is due back in Britain later this month for a short run of his stand-up show. In December, he stars in the pantomime ''Dick Whittington'' at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford, Kent.