Geoff Boyz - Live Review

No one would describe veteran Scottish stand-up Geoff Boyz as a comic visionary, as his years in the ‘nuggets and nob gags’ party clubs have taught him to play it very safe indeed.

Yes, airline pilots do always speak in a posh voice, sometimes train announcements are incomprehensible, and you could easily get a seat on the bus by pretending you had swine flu, or whatever the health scare of the day is.

It’s generic stuff indeed, interchangeable with countless other comedians who are happy to coast on uninspired routines, knowing that they will never hit the big time, but happy to take the clubs’ steady paycheque.

But it’s not all quite so bland. There’s an entertaining segment about staying in someone’s spare room, and a perceptive line or two about the habitual behaviour or speech patterns we all exhibit but barely notice. This is the stuff of fine observational comedy, getting laughs of recognition from exposing common foibles. If he could sustain this quality for longer, he could certainly make his mark, but it only lasts for about a third of his 20-minute set before we’re back on all-too common ground.

His delivery, like so much of his material, is solid but unspectacular – but then it’s hard to bring a distinctive performance to routines as familiar as many of these are. He’s a journeyman who can be counted on to get the job done, but on inspiration, he comes up short.

Pierre Hollins - Live Review

It makes for an engaging, natural stage presence and ease of audience interaction that sees him over the inconsistent quality of the material. There are some very good lines in his set, but some tired routines, too.

Comedians shouldn’t really be doing the same gags months, or even years, after a news story broke that they could have easily done on the night. Many comics’ first reaction on hearing about the baggage handler who waded into the failed Glasgow airport terror attacks was, understandably, to think: ‘Typical aggressive Scotsman, punching a man even when he’s on fire.’ Fine when it was news, but two years later you might expect a more interesting angle. But Hollins – like a lot of stand-ups, to be fair – still pushes that instant line he might have further dwelt on by now.

There’s also a musical element to Hollins’ conversational act, and he brings on stage a guitar – or sometimes a modified squash racquet – which he plays like the finest grizzled pub rocker. The terrorism song, inspired by the above, isn’t great, but his particularly English take on a blues song is entertainingly spot-on.

A mixed bag of material, then, but Hollins does have the laid-back performance skills to make the best of it.