Can you ever really give up being a comedian? This thought has occurred to me a number of times recently. On Sunday morning I was reading an interview with David Walliams in the Observer online and the bit below the headline called him and Sheridan Smith, his co-star in A Midsummer Night's Dream "former comedy stars". I know Walliams is a lot of things these days – swimmer-through-sewage/children's author/well-dressed, witty panellist – but I'd hardly call the lynchpin of current BBC1 sitcom Big School a "former comedy star". Maybe someone at the Observer had the same realisation, as I've since noticed that the description has been changed.

Then later on the same day news broke of Sir David Frost's death and as the tributes started pouring in he was variously described as ex-satirist, one-time comedian etc. While David Walliams clearly still considers comedy to be part of his extensive repertoire it was a long time since Sir David had played it for laughs, so maybe one can give up comedy if something one prefers comes along. But then again, David Frost found fame initially as more of a comedy anchorman on That Was The Week That Was than as a stand-up. And he remained something of an anchorman throughout his life.

So maybe if you are a real, bona fide stand-up comedian you can't give it up. Even though I imagine a lot of comedians are looking at their post-Fringe overdraft and wondering why they did it, I bet almost all will keep going. I can't think of any comedians who have completely quit showbiz forever following a bad review. The nearest is probably Michael Barrymore, who I don't think has ever been quite the same since this memorable night.

And look at David Baddiel, Alexei Sayle or Alan Davies, who had pretty good careers outside stand-up. Then, Godfather-like, after more than a decade, just as they thought they were out, they were pulled back in again. And all got extremely enthusiastic, positive reviews, confirming that they had made the right decision. Nick Hancock took a showbiz sabbatical to work for a mortgage brokerage, but after a while got back into broadcasting. Even Woody Allen has talked recently about appearing onstage again. Yet stand-up is so stressful it is no surprise stars look for other options. Earlier this summer Seann Walsh told me how he had considered jumping on a plane to Dublin to avoid the Edinburgh Fringe pressure cooker.

Meanwhile, within hours of reading about David Walliams and Sir David Frost I read an interview with Lee Evans in the Telegraph where he confessed that he had considered quitting stand-up to become a painter. Not a painter and decorator but a proper painter of pictures and all that. What was the point of all that success and money, he mused, if it didn't buy you the freedom to do what you liked with your life?

Perhaps one day Evans will pack it all in. But he certainly isn't going to stop for a while. Next year he embarks on his 57-date Monsters arena tour. I guess after that he will certainly have enough cash in the coffers to pick up his paintbrush for a while. But give up stand-up completely? As with David Walliams, comedy courses through Evans' veins. It is what defines him. It's in his DNA. Give up? He's surely having a laugh. 

Update 4/9/13 

After I published this piece yesterday I had some interesting feedback on Twitter. I'd not really been able to think of any major living comedians who had given up stand-up comedy while in good health, apart from Mark Lamarr, who doesn't seem to have appeared onstage for a lot of years. Ronnie Barker quit, but he was more of an actor than a stand-up and anyway, even he was eventually tempted back for a swansong. Even the ones that made it in Hollywood, such as Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy, never quite totally relinquished it. But in Twitter @neilpitty pointed to Steve Martin and I think he's right. He just seemed to decide that it was time to make a dignified exit. @Gordpleonard on the other hand suggested two comedians that should give up – Lenny Henry and Jim Davidson. Unfortunately I don't think Lenny or Jim follow either Ray or me on Twitter, so may not pick up on his request.

But some comedians do give up stand-up it turns out. Clovis Van Darkhelm and Simon Lipson both contacted me via Facebook to say that they just decided they were too old for the club circuit: Lipson still does sketch shows but said he was "sick of feeling like Granddad in dressing rooms full of young bucks," while Clovis – possibly not his real name – says that he has done character comedy but when he has tried stand-up he was "outstared by bemused rooms of young people." I suggested both maybe have the performing gene rather than the stand-up gene. There's an easy test for this and you don't even have to give blood. Simply go over to the fridge, open it and when the light comes on do you break into a song or a one-liner?

This thing about the continuing drive to do stand-up is intriguing. It came as a surprise when in 2010 the then 28-year-old Jason Manford said in interviews that he was already thinking of giving stand-up up because he wanted to spend more time with his family. “I’ll probably leave stand-up to be honest; I’ll stop doing it for a while and start writing, hopefully do more presenting and acting.” Yet three years on he is on a major UK tour. Manford has had various well-documented "issues" in the last few years but I don't think that is why he has stuck to it. I think for a lot of comedians stand-up is simply addictive.  "You can't give it up," Manford said in an interview recently, appearing to have reassessed the situation. "The buzz to be had from live comedy is like no other." And that, I guess, is why some comedians do stand-up until they can barely stand up.