TV review: Bo Burnham: Inside is one of the great works of art to come out of the pandemic
Bo Burnham: Inside
It takes about 70 minutes for (Netflix) to make sense. This is probably because I hadn’t heard of him before and didn’t realise that as well as being a comedian, he is also a musician, actor, screenwriter, film director and poet. (This is according to Wikipedia, which isn’t always wrong.)
Anyway, I came to the show thinking he was just a comedian who made a 90 minute Netflix comedy special, written, shot and edited by himself, because of Covid. So I assumed it was going to be full of gags about masks and trying to make conversation with the guy from Deliveroo. And there was a bit of that in fairness, including a disarmingly funny song about a FaceTime call with his Mom.
It’s funny because he’s screaming at his phone. There aren’t many gags across the 90 minutes, although he has a brilliant one about virtue signalling. (‘A Jew walked into a bar and I had saved him a seat’.)
is a series of funny, sometimes brilliant songs that will appeal to anyo ne who likes Randy Newman, or Tom Lehrer if you can remember back that far. Despite the joke about virtue signalling, he does a fair bit of virtue signalling. A song called ' White Woman’s Instagram' features a clever montage of Burnham playing a white woman on Instagram, but it’s also a dig at white people, from Bo, who is white himself. It’ s good but a bit annoying. His talent and flair is undeniable, but that doesn’t necessarily make it enjoyable . It’s like losing 7-0 to Brazil that way.
He’s more than just comic or musical flair in fairness. A lot of the first hour is admiring the lighting effects that he uses in the videos for his songs, and thinking it must have taken ages to get the whole thing right, but I just wish it was funnier because I thought this was supposed to a comedy special.
And then I got to the 70 th minute and things took a turn to the dark side . Bo makes it look like he’s playing to an audience, with standard stand-up patter and laughter track for the punch-lines. I won’t tell you exactly what happens but the next five minutes opened my eyes as to what he’ s trying to achieve. For all the jaunty songs and clever phrasing and ingenious lighting effects, he’s miserable. This isn’t a comedy special. It’s a play about a guy trying to make a comedy special during a pandemic, when he can’t leave the house. Unlike most plays, where you can’t leave because people will spread a rumour that you’re not an intellectual, this one is on Netflix and you can always just switch off and get stuck into your phone.
Don’t do that. Stay to the brilliant end of I watched this because I heard Blindboy say on his podcast that history will view this as one of the great works of art to come out of the pandemic. He’s right, it will.
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