CityLife

Commanding Boyle reveals quieter side

SHARP-TONGUED: Boyle

THOUGH Frankie Boyle is known for his dark, often embittered comedy when CityLife was introduced to him at a do at the Edinburgh Festival a few years back he was the epitome of mild mannered charm.

It’s always a mistake to judge a comic on the basis of their stage persona, some more than others. Indeed Boyle himself insists, “everyone that knows me, knows that I am really, really quiet.

"I have the reputation of being a very quiet person. My parents were really quiet. Their parents were even more so.”

Even when he had started to establish himself on the stand up circuit, “I was absolutely terrified every gig for about nine years.

"Then I remember doing Live Floor Show in Scotland and at the end of that going to do a gig and not feeling nervous. I’d been doing it for so long that eventually it kicked in,” he recalls with palpable relief.

It was while studying at University in Brighton that he had emerged from beneath his meek exterior. It was this ‘coming out’ that was to lead to him to build up sufficient confidence to get up and perform despite the persistent stage fright.

“I’m really glad I went to England and had university life. I read comic books, didn’t do a whole lot of work, drank a lot and started to come out of my shell a bit.”

He may have gained confidence at Uni in England but his comedic style emerged from closer to home, specifically his native Glasgow.

“Glasgow, yeah. The culture there is very… I’m not regarded as a particularly sick act. Scottish comedy by nature is very dark. It’s grim. It’s really grim.

Murders

"I started off my career telling jokes about murders and serial killers. I just thought about whatever came into my head – the darker side of Scottish life and, erm, serial killers,” he confesses.

Though it seems it isn’t that material that is the most likely to offend his audience.

“One of things that really horrifies me is the way sometimes people won’t accept jokes about celebrities when they will accept them about really harsh topics.

We’re talking about terminal illness and then you do a joke about Michael Jackson and people go, ‘ooh!’ I think people now watch so much television that those people (celebrities) are sort of closer to them than they were 20 years ago.

"That is sad. I stopped the show once when a 40-year-old man took offence at a joke about Michael Jackson. A 40-year-old man!”

These days he’s more likely to be playing to his own crowds who know him and his style well so the above scenario is less likely to happen.

“I can talk about the horror of humanity and be honest without being punched in the face,” he acquiesces.

“It is quite a harsh show, but people have definitely accepted it. I quite like trying to find where the boundary is and staying just inside it but some people find it shocking.”

Stage persona

In another contradiction to his stage persona Boyle insists that, “I’m actually a weirdly optimistic person. I always think the best thing is going to happen out of everything. It really helps me with my work, because I’m always going on thinking ‘this is going to be a fantastic show’.

"I have that weird feeling that things are always going to be good.”

And things have been good for him of late. His solo outings are popular ones, largely due to his appearances on TV in the last few years, originally on BBC Scotland’s Live Floor Show and most recently BBC 2’s Mock The Week, a project that he thoroughly enjoys working on.

“I enjoy all of it. Telly is like I used to think stand up was. It’s there in the moment and then it’s gone.

"It’s of that week and there are jokes you’ll never do again and I really enjoy that. It’s not scripted in the traditional sense. There’s a three hour record, or close to three hours, and almost half of it is improvised.”

Not that you’d catch him watching himself on any shows he has recorded, “it’s that whole thing of, you know, mad people think that they’re on TV. And when you watch yourself on TV it’s not that far away from a mental illness.”

And we can appreciate the sense in that…

Frankie Boyle is at The Lowry on Sunday, November 2. £17.50. Sold out. Call 0870 787 5780 to check for returns.