interview - Danny Bhoy

Danny Bhoy

Benito Di Fonzo

Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 2007

The Scottish comedian riles everyone from christians to Eddie Mcguire.

Danny Bhoy invented a new swearword, just for Eddie McGuire.

"I called him a dick splash," says the dark, handsome young Scotsman.

Which means?

"I don't really know. It sounds quite offensive, probably doesn't mean anything. I've used it a few times since and people find that it's a good one."

Unfortunately for Bhoy's chances of a career at Channel Nine, he said it over the Collingwood AFL club's PA at its Hall of Fame event. Did Bhoy know what he was saying to the Collingwood president-cum-Channel Nine chief?

"I didn't know who he was, that's basically what the problem was. I was backstage and he came in and said, 'Hi, I'm Eddie McGuire, I'll be introducing you.' I just thought he was the MC.

I said, 'Great, whatever, keep it tight, don't f--- me up, just bring me on and enjoy the show.'

"I did a joke which involved the C-word. Nobody had told me not to swear. I didn't really know the importance of the evening. [McGuire] walks on after me and says, 'Well, my grandfather was Scottish and he didn't need to swear to be funny.'

"I thought, 'What's he saying that for? This guy's just the MC.' So I'm still mic'd up and I turned around and said, 'Yeah, f--- you, dick splash.'"

Has he heard from McGuire since?

"I've not had his heavies round but I'm sure he's planning a revenge. I've offered myself as a contestant for Who Wants to be a Millionaire."

So far, he says, there has been no response, but Bhoy's humour has a way of provoking people. Back in Britain after that run-in, he received a death threat in Bournemouth.

The threat came from balancing jokes about Muslim reaction to Danish cartoons with jokes on Christianity.

"I got not one complaint from the Muslim community and a huge amount of emails from Christians saying, 'It's disgusting what you said.' So I carried on doing it, as you do."

The would-be assassin got close to Danny by appealing to his vanity.

"He threw me a curveball by saying, 'Oh, great show, Danny, can I get an autograph?' I went towards him and he grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall and said, 'If you ever do jokes about Jesus again I'll stab you in the neck.'

"It was quite a weird threat because it was quite specific. It made me think that guy's obviously thought long and hard about how he would kill me."

Did Bhoy point out the Fifth Commandment?

"I'd already done that onstage. He clearly hadn't taken that as written."

Bhoy's mouth has gotten him into trouble since his childhood as the only Indian-Scot in small-town Moffat.

"When the teacher introduced me to the rest of the class she goes, 'This is Danny, he's all the way from India,' as if I was commuting every day. I got in a lot of trouble at school. Like the Christian thing, not everyone's going to find you funny. In school, that was the teachers. In later life, it's Eddie McGuire."

Or the Queen, who Bhoy first met as a Scottish Young Achiever.

"Most people there were teenagers that'd climbed Mount Everest with half a head or something genuinely amazing and I'd just won a comedy competition."

Perhaps she thought he'd been commuting from India?

"Prince Phillip did. [He later] said, 'I saw your act, you're very funny, but you're weird, though: you speak Scottish but you look like a bloody Indian.' And I went, 'You know what? You've not disappointed me. You're everything I thought you were going to be.'"

Bhoy's Sydney show will combine his recent Edinburgh festival act, which was a look at the inevitability of failure through history, with material he hopes to discover on his regional tour.

"I'm being more political this year than I've ever been. With the current predicament, it just feels like something you should be talking about if you can make it funny and interesting at the same time. Then again, I'll probably end up doing dick jokes like everyone else."