Comedy

Like the poet Byron, Australian stand-up Brendon Burns has been described as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. He’s also been called ‘arrogant’, ‘offensive’ and ‘obnoxious’. He’s all of these things, but that doesn’t stop him from being a complex, intelligent, charismatic and extraordinarily talented comedian.

Last year saw him deservedly win the coveted if.comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe for his barnstorming show, ‘So I Suppose This is Offensive Now’. It was the show that everyone was talking about. Controversial, shocking and explosive, it finally proved once and for all that there was more to this shouting, ranting Aussie than a lot of people had given him credit for.

How does he explain the turnaround?

‘Real easy. I wasn’t coked up. It meant I could really focus. Consistency was the key. I’d always done great shows before but one of the judges had always come to see me when I was coming down,’ he states matter of factly. ‘I was in good physical condition because I wasn’t
caning it every night.’
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He does look in great shape. He’s tanned and toned. A lean, mean laughter machine. There’s also a fire behind his eyes, the passion of a man reborn.

‘I ironed out a lot of my weaknesses. I stopped trying too hard to “say something”, because if you try too hard you stop being funny. I’d tried so pompously in the past to say I’m a satirist or I’m this or that, but it was all bullshit. I’d lost the plot.’

So what brought about the change from the drug-fuelled Burnsy to the Brendon sat in front of me drinking lemonade?

‘I had no choice. I had a blackout one night and when I came to I had rubbed shit everywhere. It was all over my bed, all over where my then-girlfriend would have been sleeping. It was a simple choice, either get help or put a gun in my mouth. I’d gone mad.’

When you say ‘mad’, how mad?

‘I was totally bonkers. I had a full-blown psychotic episode. I was stone-cold sober looking in the mirror and I could see Satan looking back at me.’ He’s able to laugh at the memory.

‘I even heard the voice of God. Madness is strange. It’s not any one thing that causes it, it’s thousands of things and it’s not any one thing that makes you better, it’s a thousand. There’s no magic button.’

He’s come a long way since then and it’s obvious, not only from his general demeanour but also from his recent tour de force performances, that this is a man who’s back with avengeance.

‘I was a comic who took himself too seriously and went mad. Now I’ve gone back to digging it. You go through phases. Anyone with any kind of intellect will become jaded and apathetic after a while doing this job. You start thinking: What’s the point of saying this again the same way
I always do, you cunts! You even start hating the crowd for laughing. “Fuck you!” ’ he shouts. ‘You begin to hate the punters because they’ll laugh just as much at someone you rate as a comedy genius as they will at a guy just fucking treading water. Doing comedy algebra: set-up, punch, set-up, punch.’

‘I think a lot of comics are better comedians after eight years than they are after ten because that’s when you seem to forget the point of what you’re doing. You go through that tortured artist period – that critics love, incidentally – but the crowd hate because they’re saying, “You know what? My life’s already shit. I came here for you to make me laugh. I don’t want to cry at the end. I don’t care how you feel. I don’t care that much about you.” And they’re right. I know some people loved my trilogy where I opened up about everything but I’m not doing anything like it ever again. I’ve come through all that and I now I just get a kick out of making people laugh.’

So what’s next?

‘The next one is going to be even more frivolous,’ Burns laughs. ‘There’ll be no narrative arc. It’ll just be funny. And you know what? I’m going to be fucking slaughtered. I’ll be torn a new one for it. It’s called “Fuck You, I’m Brendon Fucking Burns, Again (part 6)”. It’s my “go fuck yourself” show. People have been saying I won’t top this last one, so I thought: Why even try? It’s basically about what happens if someone like me is afforded too much artistic license. It’s going to be packed with filth, issues and variety. That’s the way forward from now on.’

And you know what, I think he’s only half-joking.

Brendon Burns’ award-winning ‘So I Suppose This is Offensive Now’ is playing at the Soho Theatre until May 31 and at the Duchess Theatre, June 1.