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Glastonbury 2008: Brendan Burns

Robin Ince at Glastonbury 2008

Never invite Brendan Burns to dinner.

If you did he would manage to insult the entire table before sitting and in the process slag off anything from the royal family to biscuits.

Such is the vitriolic power of his stand up, Burns has the audacity to broach subjects which may comedians would consider a comedy taboo.

When we last saw him at Latitude last year he was still lamenting his ex-wife, this time he was more fired up about society as a whole, paying particular attention to suicide bombers and a raping in Michael Barrymore’s pool.

Anything from the rolling stones to the royal family was touched upon with the air of confidence which comes with knowing what you do is good.

“That was a great joke, enjoy yourselves.” Burns quipped before launching into another tirade, this time against the weird British racism against ginger people.

Coming out of the audience to do part of his set to a single heckler, Burns typically likes to both antagonise and sympathize with his audience.

After delivering his ginger-racism rant, he went to find a member of the audience who’d taken offence and then continue his set from the middle of the tent, delivering the remainer of the joke to him, one-on-one. Like a comedy version of amateur boxing Burns beats his hecklers into submission.

After Amy Winehouse’s drunken musings on the pyramid stage a late night Burns session was the perfect round off to a Saturday night, and a well deserved standing ovation.

Tim Clark

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