Danny Bhoy at the St James

Danny Bhoy

He might be "Danny from the block" who wears old flares and flies economy class but Danny Bhoy is a star.

Back Downunder after a successful tour at last year's Comedy Festival to yet another sell-out crowd, the Scottish stand-up pulled a J.Lo by doing away with a microphone in favour of an earpiece that meant he could pace the stage and gesticulate at will.

"I'm not very good at banter," he lied, before a quick, amusing chat with a guy in the front row.

Although not all of his routine was laugh-out-loud hilarious, he is a natural storyteller who deftly threads in and out of the narrative, expertly dropping in impersonations and foreign accents, and revisiting punchlines when you would least expect.

His casual, chatty style and easy-going rapport would make him an excellent dinner companion, as long as you're not serving grain-fed chicken, because he would break into a French accent and start pecking the ground.

Yes, Bhoy has mastered the art of stand-up. But sometimes he is suspiciously slick.

He has a knack of pretending he's making things up as he goes: a little chuckle at himself here, a "Now where was I?" there.

And he never dares to push a joke too far, even if he's poking fun at racial stereotypes or matters of the church. Perhaps it's no wonder.

The minute he ventured into religious territory - some fairly safe jibes about the Danish cartoons, what's more - a woman in the audience yelled "Jesus is Lord!" until she had to be escorted out of the room by security.

If a heckle is a true test of a comedian's mettle, the interruption only endeared him more to the crowd. "I think you're in the wrong room," he sniped. "If you check your ticket carefully I think you'll find the word, 'comedy'."

He was right. A side-splitting performance of the imaginary bagpipes is reason enough to book your tickets now before they sell out.