Bo Burnham: What @ The Dancehouse, Manchester

Bo Burnham’s What isn't an ordinary standup show. There’s no sentimental reveal about an ailing loved one or an ex-girlfriend, and no attempts at a narrative arc. It’s a patchwork of physical comedy, Ben Folds Five-esque songs and interaction with pre-recorded voices and sounds. He jumps between each erratically, playing with the audience’s perception of what is pre-written and what is ad-libbed. This show is Burnham seemingly giving the audience a glimpse at the real person behind the stage persona, but even this in itself is an act. It makes for a fascinating, multi-layered show, interspersed with hilariously absurd jokes, puerile poems and self-deprecating asides for when you think he might be getting slightly over-confident.

We can see slight hints of his real off-stage personality when he thanks the audience for coming, confessing that he is inspired greatly by European and Australian acts such as Tim Key, Tim Vine, Tim Minchin, Hans Teeuwen, Bill Bailey and Sam Simmons. The influence of all these acts permeates Burnham’s set, and it is a heady combination.

Burnham has such an energy on stage. Even if you’re not interested in the mechanics of comedy and how he deconstructs his set, he is completely magnetic and impossible to ignore. Perhaps some of his jokes are juvenile, perhaps he makes fun of children with ginger hair and fat women while claiming to stand up for the underdog. There are some contradictions. But there is a winning charm and an overarching tongue-in-cheek element to everything he says on stage. It’s the ambiguity of his character and the constant variation that makes this show completely enchanting, brilliantly funny and incredibly exciting all at once.