Review by Steve Bennett

Danny Bhoy's a very straightforward, back-to-basics comic.

No multimedia presentations or gimmicky props for him, just a bloke with a microphone talking about whatever he finds funny. And how effortless he makes it all look.

Which, of course, can be a problem, as you never know quite how much effort he's really putting in.

For this performance, the last billed as a preview, the audience were certainly slow to warm to his underplayed, laid-back style.

He had excused himself at the outset - explaining that he was recovering from a kidney operation - and the unsettling presence of a persistent yet incomprehensible heckler (a genuinely disturbed bloke who should never have been allowed to stay) further put him off his stride.

That he was hitting below his weight was a disappointment, as there was some fine material on show, with shining one-liners littering the comic landscape he creates. But unfortunately the whole worked out less than the sum of its parts.

Bhoy didn't tackle a particularly wide range of topics, gift shops and the tat they contain occupying the lion's share of the set. He got a great deal of mileage out of this easiest of targets, though for the most part he successfully navigated around the more predictable observations as he discussed whisky-flavoured condoms, oversize pencils and the like.

However, a couple of forays into different territories led him into comedic cul-de-sacs.

Though never less than entertaining, Bhoy did seem to have lost a lot of his usual sparkle in this show, which never reached the heights his stand-up usually hits. Let's hope he hits his stride again soon.

Review date: 1 Jan 2002
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett