Now is not a good time for Danny Bhoy

To say that 2021 and 2022 were strange years would be a blatant understatement. However, to share your experiences of lockdown to an eagerly listening audience – in a show called Now Is Not A Good Time – with the expectation that the crowd should laugh… Well, that’s a whole other beast.

Edinburgh-based comedian Danny Bhoy spent nearly three years away from the stand-up comedy scene, often alone in his house in Scotland. Despite still processing the experience of drastically different living conditions, he has come out of the depths of the pandemic with a whole new show ready to be toured in Australia.

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“I’m still processing these last two years,” says Danny. “It’s so strange, but you realise everyone has their own story. I did it in a big house in Edinburgh on my own – I think people are ready to hear those stories. 2022 was a year where everyone wanted to get back in the game, but I think now people are ready to share their experiences of what was undoubtedly one of the strangest times of our lives.”

Danny is filled with excitement ahead of the upcoming tour in Australia, but admits that getting back into regular stand-up comedy gigs was nothing short of daunting.

“I am so stoked about coming back to Australia,” he says. “It is my first tour there since 2019. I’ve not been there for three and half years and usually I would be there at least every other year, if not every year.

“This tour is going to be my first actual tour back in the UK, Canada, or anywhere in the world. For that reason, it means an awful lot. I’m champing at the bit to get there, to be honest.

“I only started back in summer last year, but most people had returned to stand-up six months before that. The first few gigs were like my first gig in Edinburgh – it was terrifying. It took a couple of months to find my feet again.”

The return to stand-up reaffirmed the value he places in his comedic career, which spans over 20 years. What’s more, he discovered it was a remedy for a challenging time to be living in the UK.

“It’s definitely been cathartic. I had all of this stuff written, and when I started saying it out on stage as opposed to saying it in my flat on my own, it felt really good, it felt like this is the right environment for this to be said. Then of course, having people laugh because you had originally thought something was funny, alongside the nods of recognition was just great.”

It’s been a long time coming for Danny, since his first five-minute gig on a chilly winter night in Scotland – a time when finding more than five minutes of material was a stretch.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years or so,” says Danny, “but I remember my first gig well. It was a freezing cold night in January in 1998 and I had booked myself in for a gig in a pub in Edinburgh. I’d been thinking about stand-up for a bit. The booking was six weeks in advance. The lady who had booked me in called me back just before the show and said ‘we have had a drop-out this weekend’, so I went down and did this five-minute slot in Edinburgh and it went really well. I did another two or so gigs in Edinburgh after that. Then I moved down to London because I had a job down there, which eventually fell through. So, I ended up just doing the comedy down there as a hobby. My formative years were in London, but my first few gigs were in Edinburgh.”

Danny concedes that it was much easier to get gigs at clubs in London at the time. Facing many new opportunities, the comedian brought a potent courage that resulted in securing gigs.

“At the time you could pretty much see 20-odd gigs around greater London every single night of the week,” he says. “I was tenacious. I would just turn up at clubs and ask if I could do five minutes.”

“What I would do is finish work and then literally flick through Time Out music and find a shit club that I might be able to blag my way onto the bill. Then I’d get on the tube, find the club, and talk to the promoter and say ‘Can I get on and do five minutes?’. I think the sheer bravery of it meant that they would say ‘fine’ and I’d play the ‘I’ve come the whole way from Scotland story.’ There are lots of clubs I could do that with, which I couldn’t do in Edinburgh.”

But Danny never foresaw he would be able to make a career out of it. Comedy just felt like a suitable complement to a life spent working in London.

“I thought it would be helpful for job interviews and such. It never really felt like it was going to be a profession. I certainly didn’t get paid and you typically don’t get paid for at least the first year, if not longer.”

Although it was a moment of serendipity, or fate, that allowed Danny to consider pursuing a career in comedy.

“I remember this guy booked me for a gig,” says Danny. “I turned up and he said, ‘Look, the headliner’s pulled out, can you do the headline slot and I’ll give [you] 30 quid?’. 30 quid was a huge amount back then. I was living in a cupboard in London. You know, I’d never made a penny off stand-up and suddenly this guy is saying I’ll give you 30 quid to headline a gig. But of course, it was 20 to 30 minutes, whereas I only had five minutes of content. I wasn’t going to turn down 30 quid, so I did it and that was a moment when I had to use banter and talk to the audience a bit. It was absolutely terrifying and I learnt from that.”

“I remember when I got paid, I went out for a Chinese meal and I couldn’t believe I was eating food that had been paid for by me doing comedy. It was such a weird thing and I remember at that moment I thought I could make a career from this. I could definitely get used to this, going and making people laugh and then getting the buzz off that and going out and actually being able to afford food.”

From a b(h)oy that was raised in Moffat, a small town 60 miles south of Edinburgh with a population of around 2,500, Danny has come a long way in comedy. He has struggled through it but maintained his passion and drive.

As he commences touring his new show in Melbourne, you can expect entertainment through stories that are real, original, and utterly hilarious.

“I’ve had to find a way to talk about the pandemic,” says Danny. “I’m aiming for funny routines, and more importantly original routines, because everyone has been stuck at home.”

Danny Bhoy is playing the Athenaeum Theatre from April 11 to April 23 as part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Buy tickets here.

This article was made in partnership with Bohm.