As a stand up comic comes onto stage a comedy journalist tends to spend the first couple of seconds ticking-off a visual check-list.  "Is the comedian wearing unusual clothing/costume?... None detected......... Character act..... None detected....... Silly Voice Gimmick? .... None detected............. Exagerated Persona? ....... None detected .......... Looks like he could have been in a boy band? ...... Well, maybe slightly."

The Boy Band thing aside, Danny Bhoy did not appear to have any gimmicks or anything else to make him stand out from the crowd (so to speak).  So at this point it will usually go one of two ways.  You're either about to see a comic whose material is strong enough to stand-alone and does not need to rely on any kind of gimmickry to start their act, or you're going to see a bland unmemorable comic whom five minutes after leaving the stage you cannot remember their name, any of their material or even what colour shirt they were wearing.

Fortunately Danny Bhoy was far from the latter.  In a somewhat cheeky and friendly,  yet comparatively 'low key' manner he delivered some top quality material.  You could tell that you were not seeing a comic who had been peddling exactly the same set day in day out for the last five years, with his material being particularly topical throughout.  An early target was the recent 'Beagle 2 Mars Mission', with witty comparisons to the 'West Country' nature of much of the mission.  It may be true that the Beagle space mission disaster could currently be becoming a temporary hack topic, in the same way that Britains success in the Olympic Curling competition (that thing where you slide kettles on ice and stuff) did a year or so ago, but with material this strong who could blame Danny for using the topic to achieve such big laughs.

It is clear to see why Danny can now command the headline spot at many comedy clubs.  This is a comic who could go a long long way.

Komedia - Brighton - 30/01/2004 - Headline Act