Brendon Burns @ Lantern Theatre, 31 January

Burns starts his first ever Liverpool gig with a modicum of trepidation. He did, after all, receive death threats over five years ago for material that some might deem ‘offensive to Scousers’. The beauty of Burns’ recent tour, Outside the Box, however, is that only the true die hard fans were here to see him, and where his fan base may not be huge, they are fiercely loyal. The result is a reassured Burns phoning his wife to let her know he won’t be getting murdered tonight. 

Burns likes to offend – it is his bread and butter – and the audience reactions to gags about cancer and rape gave the antipodean a chance to revel in the awkwardness that such subjects bring out in even the most ardent of fans. There is nothing disingenuous about his performance; there is no fourth wall. He is a comic so acutely self-aware he confesses everything from his delusions of grandeur to perceived lack of success, which only endears him to the audience further.

This latest show closes with what should be a rather dated Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, but as Burns brilliantly deconstructs the nature of the bit, while still in character, he brings the crowd onside and ‘Arnold’ is able to explain why exactly it’s all funny. In an encore of sorts he elaborates on the furore surrounding the death threats mentioned in his opening gambit and proceeds to list a bunch of anti-jokes about Scousers having no sense of humour, nodding to the irony that these particular Liverpudlians most certainly do. Fans of Burns will not be disappointed, but then in a tour that is solely aimed at devotees it would be difficult to miss.