A Bhoy with a comic touch
By TIM LLOYD
24jan04
DANNY Bhoy says his name reflects his mixed Scottish/Indian heritage. Bhoy is his mother's maiden name. At first, I'm not sure if he is joking, but later on in our phone interview he talks about the difficulties of growing up in Moffat, a Scottish town near the English border.
He's writing some autobiographical material he plans to take to the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe. "It was quite tough," he recalls. "It was a small Scottish town and we were the first half-Asian family to arrive in town and be accepted.
"The previous attempts had all failed. It was a struggle with funny and tragic sides to it."
Danny Bhoy is one of those comedians who likes to tell stories rather than tell jokes.
He is making his first assault on the Adelaide Fringe, but if his success elsewhere is anything to go by, Adelaide will take to him.
His first foray into Australia was at last year's Melbourne Comedy Festival and he was a hit, selling out within a week.
He started out in comedy just four years ago, as best man at his brother's wedding.
"That's when I decided I quite enjoyed doing it," he says. "Two weeks later, I booked myself in at the Edinburgh Fringe."
Given that Scotland hosts the world's biggest fringe and comedy festival, the comedy is pretty thin on the ground, he says.
"What happens is a lot of comics descend on Edinburgh for four weeks for the Fringe and then there tends to be a drought. I am one of the few comics who doesn't pack up his bags and leave Edinburgh. It's weird up there. It's like a ghost town," says Danny Bhoy.
He used to be taken to the Edinburgh Fringe by his older brothers. Today, he travels the world with those comedians he saw then. All, that is, except that most famous of Scots comics, Billy Connolly. Danny Bhoy says Connolly was one of his boyhood heroes, and his delivery of humour is similar.
"It's a mixture of tales and observations and that's where my style originated, although it has grown and developed," he says. "He was the biggest comic in the world when I was growing up. I met him very briefly when I was about 11 when I went to the Highland Games in Inverary and he used to have a house nearby and he came down and was having a beer.
"I was star-struck and I went over and patted his dog, and he told me to f... off. And that's a true story."
From playing short seasons and one-night stands all over Britain, Danny Bhoy's career has evolved to seasons that run for a month at a time and sell out 250-seat venues. Now he lives in London, which he describes as having "more comedy clubs per square mile than anywhere else in the world".
"Melbourne went so well last year that I have taken on quite a big (450-seat) room there this year," he says.
"So Adelaide for me is a clean sheet as well. I am looking forward to stamping a mark there."
Danny Bhoy plays at Nova Cinema 2 for the whole Fringe.
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