Created: Jan 24, 2023 07:43 AM
Stand-up comedian Danny Bhoy will perform here next month, in Just for Laughs (Photograph supplied)
Danny Bhoy has told his jokes around the world but claims that it is Bermuda that he loves coming back to.
He’s returning next month for his fourth visit. As usual, he will take the stage for Just for Laughs.
“The temperature in Edinburgh right now is 23F and it gets dark at 4.22pm,” said the Scottish stand-up comedian. “Coming to Bermuda in February is great. I love renting a bike and bombing around the shires. Bermuda is possibly one of my favourite trips, if only because of the water.”
The show will be his first overseas since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
“I am still processing it,” he said. “A lot of my standup talks about where I have been and what I have done.”
Everything from getting a haircut to outwitting the native wildlife while on tour is fair game for his humour.
“But after spending two years stuck at home, it is challenging to find material,” he said.
“I have a bit in this new show talking about social history. Everyone has their own story of how we have dealt with the pandemic in the last two years. I have a show that people will find both very funny and interesting.”
A week after he leaves Bermuda he heads to Australia and New Zealand, and then a tour of the United Kingdom.
Born Danni Chaudhry, he grew up in a small village in Scotland, the son of an Indian father and Scottish mother.
Danny Boy was his grandmother’s nickname for him. He added an ‘h’ because a dog with the same name was already registered with the Actors’ Equity Association.
Although always the class clown, he never considered doing stand-up until he saw a comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998.
“I had just finished doing a history degree at the University of Glasgow and was not sure what I was going to do with my life,” Danny said.
He telephoned a pub in Edinburgh and they gave him a stand-up spot three months from then.
“I was quite relieved,” he said. “I had three months to decide not to do it. But ten minutes after I got off the phone, the woman from the pub called back and said, ‘This must be your lucky day because someone just pulled out for this weekend.’”
The gig was in a seedy basement.
“I spent about five minutes cobbling together material,” he said. “I went in and there were about 20 people there, and I thought, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ I snuck back up the stairs and started walking home. I must have walked for ten minutes before I thought, ‘Come on, Danny, you will never know if you could do this.’ So I turned back.”
Shortly after, he moved to London and worked various jobs while doing stand-up on the side.
“I didn’t tell anyone back home that I was doing comedy,” he said.
But a year later, he won The Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award, Britain's top competition for comedy newcomers.
“Winning was quite a big thing,” he said. “I got invited to the Melbourne Comedy Festival and Just for Laughs Montreal. I had never done gigs outside of the UK before. Suddenly, I had moved from phoning promoters to them phoning me.”
He gave up his day job and finally told his family what he was doing. They were “supportive without being impressed” which suited him just fine.
In 2010 he was a guest on Late Show with David Letterman; the experience was slightly anticlimactic.
“You think when you watch it on television that it is all very glamorous,” he said. “I thought I would do my five minutes and then hang around with David Letterman, maybe go to a jazz club afterward in New York.”
Instead, he turned up at 5pm and was placed in a small room, by himself.
“After a few minutes, one of the show’s runners knocked on the door and said, ‘Come with me.’”
A planned five-minute routine lasted eight minutes.
“The audience just laughs in Scotland,” he said. “I never really time my comedy.”
It was only when he heard the band start up that he realised he had to stop.
“Then they took me out into the corridor, and opened a door onto a side street. And that was it,” he said. “It was surreal.”
Just for Laughs Bermuda’s 15th anniversary show takes place February 15, 16, 17 and 18 and will be hosted by Alonzo Bodden. Tammy Pescatelli, Ivan Decker and Jonathan Young will also perform. Tickets range from $65 to $125. For more information: www.comedyevent.bm
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