Bill Burr

Political correctness and comments on idiotic society have been comedic fodder probably since the inception of laughing.

In its better iterations, we see Louis CK playing a grumpy, angry dad; Bill Hicks was an enraged anarchist: both drawing from a heavy undercurrent of ‘What’s wrong with you people?’ comedy. Bill Burr operates in the same vein, lamenting in his magnificent Boston drawl why it’s considered sexist to ask his wife to make a sandwich. The content may be jarring, but Burr does a fantastic job in playing the role of an ignorant and pissy 40-something man who genuinely sees his comments in the wrong context.

He lends us the humour of seeing something like a woman making her husband a sandwich as an act of kindness instead of a reflection of oppressive gender norms. He manages to stretch his particular brand of political incorrectness to a uniquely antagonising place that you’ll be surprised you laughed at. Just as the point is not to be a jerk (but rather to play the role of a jerk for comedic effect), Burr’s entire show wasn’t solely reliant on humour of the socially backwards variety; his anecdotal abilities are absolutely stellar. If you can separate the man from the jokes, and the unsavoury jokes from their crappy reality, you’d enjoy Bill Burr live.

Arts Centre, 29 Jan