Radio Review: 17 January

The word ‘nice’ is not, generally, one I’d use to describe the controversial Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle. Brutal, yes. Profane, certainly. Please note that I don’t use these disapprovingly. I love brutal and profane comedy if it’s good. However, when he was the guest of fellow Scottish stand-up Kevin Bridges on the last Chain Reaction of the present series, I came away thinking what a nice, thoughtful, funny man Boyle seemed to be.

There are few more joyous sounds than good friends making each other laugh, and the warmth of the chat was undoubtedly due to the fact that Bridges and Boyle – the latter now retired from the stand-up circuit – are genuinely chums. Bridges, one of my favourite current comedians, confronted his friend’s image as a man ‘laughing at disabled people and booting guide dogs right in the muzzle’. Boyle recalled a reviewer who said he’d be able to accept Boyle’s material more readily if he were a character act. Boyle observed that this amounted to ‘I’d feel happier about this if you were wearing a hat’.

I enjoyed Boyle’s knowing despair at one of his children starting to write jokes (‘Don’t go down that road, son’), and his suggestion that professional footballers may well be the worst examples of humanity in existence. ‘What would life be like if you’d never read a book,’ he mused, ‘and you just practised running and lifting weights on your thighs?’

Later on, I howled at the riff Bridges and Boyle got on to about the need to appoint a Scottish royal family at random from the telephone directory if the independence vote is a yes.

It came across that Boyle is a bright man, constantly questioning aspects of life and his own character, something all too frequently obscured by his on-stage manner. A joy to hear.

Louis on Twitter: @LFBarfe or email: wireless@cheeseford.net