If you're reading this, chances are you're on the internet, and if you're on the internet chances are that you've heard of Bo Burnham. He's the prodigy of the comedy world, a 20 year old whose internet videos have won him worldwide acclaim and popularity. After a well-received run in Edinburgh last year, Burnham undertook his first UK tour, and I was lucky enough to be at the tour's final stop in London.
Looking down at the crowd from my seat up in the rafters, I thought back to an interview I'd read with Burnham about his audiences in the UK, which he said would be more likely to consist of older patrons. Well, not this crowd - I definitely felt like an old man in this crowd, and I'm in my mid-20s. It seemed to be full of teenagers using their smartphones and their twitters right up to the start of the show (some even taking in the start of the show - thank you, YouTube).
And what a start it is - Bo's opening segment is a sprawling seven minute opus, starting off with an epic drone as Bo sets the faux-serious epic tone that he quickly dismantles as he hurtles into comedy lightspeed, taking in a tour of audience abuse (in an endearing way), bathetic undercutting of the intensely dramatic backing-track, and a tour of a fantasy-land with Bo proceeds to desecrate and and cut down, before ending in good-old innuendo. It's an opening that showcases two things that become recurring themes throughout the evening - the relentless pace with which he goes about working the stage, and the wide-reaching, quick-jumping approach he has to his material.
Bo's songs tend to employ either clever wordplay or quick undercutting of tone, and a few of his songs end on abrupt punch-lines into staccato, just as they seem to be started. The storytelling within the musical element of the show is an interesting comparison with the stand-up part of his show, which consists mostly of quick-fire one-liners, which indicate a rather scattershot approach to his his comedy. He can seem like a demented ADD sufferer at times, simply unable to focus on one thing. It almost feels like he feels that he has to fill the space between the songs with whatever comes into his head.
The reason Bo has such a devoted following is his positioning himself as the mainstream outsider. He often refers to people not liking him and his not liking people. People feel that they can relate to his troubles and travails. In this context, his final piece, 'Nerds', is surprisingly moving - a thoughtful, restrained rap about being a nerd and the abuse that he received for it. It helps that he's a competent enough rapper, but it's delivered with a raw emotional conviction that makes it seem far more personal than the rest of his material, which since it tends to take a more attacking tone has to lie hidden behind the veil of persona.
I think my highlight of the night actually preceded 'Nerds', when Bo quickly slipped off the mask of his stage persona and started to espouse his love of the UK comedy scene, namechecking people like Tim Key and Tim Vine, before waving his arms at the sky and screaming "WHY STEW, WHY??? WE COULD'VE BEEN FRIENDS!!!", a reference to the seeming discontent he appears to have drawn from UK comedy hero Stewart Lee (Lee had an article in the Financial Times on Friday feeling sorry for Burnham for being compared to him in the previous week's Guardian). I've always got the impression that Lee is more opposed to the idea of Burnham than anything else,
I took a friend to see Bo as a birthday present, and when we left the Empire we walked past the alley leading to the Stage Door. A crowd of youngsters had already started forming, no doubt hoping to catch an autograph of the internet's biggest crossover star. I saw my friend looking down that alleyway, and could see that she was considering joining them, even though she had nearly a decade on the rest of the group, before evidently feeling I was guilting her into feeling too mature to stoop to that. I could see where she was coming from: Bo's an incredibly likable presence which allows him to get away with pushing pretty far into scathing attack. I think the kid's gonna do alright.
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