There’s a particular pleasure in seeing someone do their job incredibly well. Edinburgh is certainly a place to pick up fledgling talent but sometimes it’s nice to watch someone who’s already been through it, learned the important lessons and is just damn good.
That Bhoy can spend ten minutes talking about canapé etiquette and have these be ten of the funniest minutes of comedy I’ve seen this year is a testament to his stand-up skills.
Danny Bhoy is everything a stand-up should be – charming, charismatic, gently misanthropic and, above all, fiercely insightful. Perfectly at home holding a huge venue in the palm of his hand, he chats deftly and calmly about subjects from tedious blue musicians to pigeons. The shining moments of the night, however, are the ones that bring into focus things that everyone recognises but have never consciously considered. That Bhoy can spend ten minutes talking about canapé etiquette and have these be ten of the funniest minutes of comedy I’ve seen this year is a testament to his stand-up skills. Likewise his accounts of such simple events as getting a haircut or going for a fancy meal are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny in that infuriatingly you-have-to-be-there way. And his bashful awkwardness while telling us about a disastrous encounter with a German toymaker had me giggling for hours after the show had finished.
Played out on a bare black stage with only four blue uplighters to add colour, ’12 Nights, 12 Charities’ shows that good comedy doesn't need gimmicks, set-pieces or a convoluted setup – it just needs the right mind behind it. A brilliant night for an excellent cause.
