| 06 August 2010
I’m not kidding with that rating; this was very poor, very poor indeed. But let’s be positive and concentrate on that one star for a moment, awarded solely for the interactions between Burns and his hilarious guitarist sidekick. Though primarily there to provide musical accompaniment, this pseudo-troglodyte’s occasional interjections gained the biggest laughs from the sparse crowd, no doubt warmed by the natural sense of camaraderie, which can surely only get better as the run continues.Unfortunately, the written material was as disjointed and weakly conceived as the title of the show. Disappointing punchlines were the only discernible consistency, and the unabashed schmaltz of the show’s ‘conclusion’ had only a deleterious effect on the preceding hour’s already ill health. For instance, Burns’ criticism of Stewart Lee, for expecting too much from an audience, was rendered particularly insulting after Burns’ limp suggestion that Jesus might be ‘a bit gay’; an image perhaps best known (to the discerning audience) as already having caused notable controversy in Lee and co’s infamous Jerry Springer: The Opera.
In his wholly vain attempts to shock, Burns talked paedophiles (ooh!), threesomes (no!) and blowjobs (who or what are they?), but even the less derivative material just wasn’t clever or funny enough to excuse retreading these well-worn comic paths. Burns’ main rant about atheism had all the savvy and sparkle of a high school philosophy essay, and his attempts to incorporate quantum physics were laughable in precisely the wrong way.
Burns simply does not have the vocabulary, nor the consistency of logic required to address his weightier topics, though even I will admit that he does talk a lot of the title's much-vaunted shit. Sigh.
Udderbelly, 5-30 August (not 17), 9.55pm
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