Brendan Burns Interview

• 24th Nov 2010

Controversial Australian comic Brendan Burns won the prestigious if. comedy award in 2007 for his show I Suppose This Is Offensive Now and is currently touring his show Y’know Love n God n Metaphysics n Shit. Adam Richardson caught up with him to ask a few questions.

AR: You’ve said before that starting out, you got booed off a lot. When did you last bomb?

BB: Bombing is down to interpretation. Is it being booed off? Because I genuinely don’t allow myself to be booed off. If a crowd is booing, I will stay and leave when I want to on my own terms. The fact of the matter is, no audience has been doing comedy for 200+ nights a year for twenty years, so how can they possibly understand the psychology at play the way I do? Also, when an audience is booing they look like cattle. It’s the dumbest way I’ve ever seen a group of human beings express themselves collectively. They look like idiots. So when I crowd is booing I think I’m perfectly within my rights to say, “I’m right, you’re wrong and if you had any idea what you look like right this very second you would be utterly embarrassed for yourselves”

Having said that, have I eaten it and performed below par? Absolutely. Only recently in Edinburgh I just sucked. The crowd were great. I’d had massive career news that day and just phoned it in. My mind left my body until a good forty minutes in and then returned to say, “I am so sorry. I haven’t been here for a good three quarters of the show. This is unforgivable. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what the fuck happened? I feel like I’ve just been bothering you while you’re locked in a room”

They laughed and we moved on from there. That’s what’s so unique about a British audience, they will forgive a lot so long as your honest about it.

AR: What’s the best heckle you’ve had?

BB: In 2003 at the Melbourne festival, after about half an hour of spurious socio political posing I changed gear and asked, “How many women in this room have a big c***?”

A middle aged woman sighed sarcastically, “Oh I don’t know Brendon, I imagine all of us”

AR: What’s the worst town in Britain to gig in?

BB: Liverpool. Ask anyone that isn’t scouse. It’s horrible.

AR: Can you describe the writing process behind your material?

BB: No. It happens a thousand ways. No one ever asks any other artist that. I’m guessing it’s because people are very interested by the machinations of humour. Everyone would love to presume themselves funny, but they’re not. So in the early days of doing open spots, a professional comedian almost seems impossibly funny. But there’s a chasm between being a funny guy and a professional comic. So naturally people want to ask, how the hell are comics so funny? And the shortest answer I can give is it takes years and years.

AR: What can people expect from your current show ‘Y’know, Love n God n Metaphysics n Shit’?

BB: Love, god, metaphysics n shit. Not everyone will like it and not for the usual edgy, in your face declarations other comics might make either. Quite the opposite. It’s a love story with a hopefully tender uplifting message.