Bo Burnham: Words, Words, Words!

⭐⭐⭐⭐ based on 1 review.

tl;dr: Not much more than the CD, but well worth a watch if you love musical comedy.

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Standup Comedy

Review

Spoilers Ahead: My reviews are not spoiler-free. You have been warned.

Having listened to the album of Words, Words, Words! on repeat for the best part of two months when it originally came out, I have to say there was very little extra to the show itself. In some ways, that made it quite a bit of fun, as I already knew most of the lyrics so, particularly for the tongue twisters, could fully appreciate the many levels Burnham weaves into his seemingly simplistic jokes.

On the flip side, however, it meant there was very little to surprise me, so actual laughter was a little lacking. As a result, my attention was inordinately grabbed by the audience interaction; I noticed heckling and laughter hits/misses far more than most stand-up routines, because I was less engaged. To say the audience for this performance was a little odd would be overly polite as the theatre was clearly rammed with serious fans, who don't lend themselves massively to stand-up comedy. They were clearly more interested in hearing the songs they knew or loved (even singing along occasionally) rather than laughing at the new material. I almost felt sorry for Bo towards the end - it's a pretty weird situation for a comic to find themselves in and you can't help but feel that, despite launching his career, the cloud of Youtube will likely mar his trajectory for many years to come.

Despite all of this, though, Wordsx3 remains a very solid routine. Burnham's talent shines through, especially when addressing topics such as religion and several of his comedy songs are incredibly well put together as tracks in their own right.