Geoff Boyz claims that we can all make people laugh. Can you pull off a Robert de Niro impression like he can? He talks to Veronica Stivala about impressions, daftness and price.

Geoff Boyz will be performing at the upcoming Eden Comedy Club.

“How many of you walked into your kitchen this week, walked up to the fridge, opened the door, had a look inside, shut the door, and f***** off?

And you keep going back, don’t you? And if you’re a man, nine times out of 10, you’re going to have a piece of ham hanging out of your mouth.”

This is Geoff Boyz’s humour for you. Quite raw, simple and about every day life’s oddities and peculiarities. We’re all guilty of these fridge visits and it’s quite funny to have what could be a quite mundane event played out to us like this.

Of course you’d have to imagine Boyz’s quaint Glaswegian accent moulding his vowels, as well as his slightly raspy voice which give his lines extra punch. And his face. You would not think it to look at him, but the man can pull of a Robert de Niro impression convincingly. Those expressive eyebrows definitely help.

Boyz’s humour is all about life and how we deal with situations. “I observe, I suppose,” he confides. “I love the daftness of life.”

Indeed the daftness of both his and other people’s lives is where this comedian draws his inspiration from. “I get my ideas from watching people,” comments Boyz. “I mean, how many times a day do you find yourself sniggering at something you or someone else has done? We are all comedians, you know.”

Well, some of us know how to articulate ourselves better than others, or Boyz would be out of a job.

Like so many famous comedians, Boyz made his solo debut at the comedy mecca, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1996, returning the following year with Noise and Other Announcements at the Assembly Rooms in the same city.

Comedy was in Boyz’s blood. He admits he was quite noisy as a child, loved a good laugh, and really enjoyed being the class clown. “It stopped the bullies,” he reveals. He grew up in a small town in west Scotland called Strathaven, “a rather cold place but lovely”. He left young though, and at 17 made his way to London with nothing in his pockets.

The comedian says he got his calling one day in 1987 as he was walking past The Comedy Store in Leicester Square, London. He went in and saw some of the best live comedy he had ever seen. “Not that I’d seen much,” he concedes. But he was hooked and knew that this was all he ever wanted to do.

His most memorable experience in his career as a comedian is his first TV show in the 1990s. It was BBC1 and an afternoon show called Pebble Milli. Boyz had to perform live – surely no mean feat for a first time television appearance. He was doing some impressions in those days, and did his impression of the late, great Dave Allen… and he was there!

“He loved it,” reminisces Boyz, “and told me that I had got the missing finger right too. He was my hero and a gentleman. What a thrill for the new boy.”

Boyz’s most embarrassing moment was when he bought a new jacket for a big gig and forgot to cut the price tag off the sleeve.

Who does he look up to?

“My mother gives the best advice and makes the best tea ever.” Bless.

This will be Boyz’s first visit to Malta. Although he does not know much about the island, he’s going to do his very best to find out. “As for the show, you can expect lots of laughs.”

Next in the pipeline for him is a one-man show called Inventions from a Scotsman at the Melbourne comedy festival in April. “I do love Australia,” says Boyz, “and I can’t wait to get going with that.”

Geoff Boyz performs at the 8th edition of the Eden Comedy Club at Eden Cinemas, St Julian’s, on February 7 at 8.30pm.

www.edencinemas.com.mt