Brendon Burns is forty-one. The home stretch of his show’s title is the realisation that, at his age, he can let go of a lot of baggage and feel comfortable in his maturity. But for God’s sake, don’t expect that this premise means he’s going to take it easy or, for that matter, go easy on his audience.
Few people combine such dexterous and dense ideas with as much flat-out rage as Burns. Seeing him in full flow is like watching an argument between a wrestler and an academic trapped in one body. This makes his choice to turn his ferocious delivery to topics which could easily be addressed by a safer comedian - the increasing preposterousness of a bad-boy reputation at forty, the sight of forty-somethings rocking out through backache at an AC/DC gig, even a segment about his love of Masterchef – a canny step for such an uncompromising comedic intelligence. Pushed into territory that others tread with cosy familiarity, he still retains a power to shock, to generate belly laughs, and to have the audience hanging on the complexity of his material. Walkouts and sage nods were equally balanced. A riff on internet porn partly yelled into the faces of the more perturbed in the crowd suddenly transforms into an extended tale of a teen sex-worker desperate to reconnect with an absent father. In one moment, Burns hijacks the cathartic rush used to defend ‘shock’ comedy and uses it as a springboard for emotionally charged musings about deep-seated fears and uncertainties.
However Burns’ no-nonsense style side-steps the accusation of using comedy for therapy. The rush he gives an audience shows an incredibly energetic mind at work, even when his energies are not fully converted into an idea. Moments that seem less successful, such as his railing at an online detractor, occasionally leave his ire a little directionless. However, this is a small price to pay for the sublime moments when rage and emotional power click together. As he describes his reconciliation with his dying father, through a resolutely unsimplified evocation of Burns Sr.’s scientific mindset, his ferociousness is at one with a raw, unguarded intensity that unveils deep-seated and uncomfortable truths. Better yet, that bit even has a punchline. The audience breathe a sigh of relief and burst into laughter at the same time.
