Bo Burnham: what.

I have admired Bo Burnham since he was 16 and I was 22. At the time (and still), I was teaching 16-years-olds how to write music; but for me, Bo was a source for my own study. His wit, his timing, and his absolutely genius writing was simply something I had never seen before in lyrical form.

Bo started out as a giant: and still he continued to grow. This show is, simply put, masterful. It is laugh-out-loud funny, it is surprising, it is honest, and simultaneously real and surreal. Bo: my hat is off to you. Please keep doing exactly what you're doing: and please keep surprising us with something different.

This wasn't just a comedy show. In fact, I think the comedy was secondary to what was an introspective, artistic masterpiece of debatably unmatched proportions. Every second of this special was incredible, even when the jokes weren't - which wasn't often. I get that comedy is subjective, but this was more than comedy. Bloody brilliant!

I had not heard of this comedian before and found this special on Netflix and thought I would give it a try. To sum up my thoughts... I do appreciate Bo Burnham's wit and cleverness. I also appreciate his silly and zany performance as well as his musical talents. I just don't find it laugh out loud funny.

Unfortunately, I found What. to be annoying and Bo's singing voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. It's looking doubtful that I will continue watching past 35 minutes. That said, I give him credit for being young, clever and making it happen for himself. And hey, I suggest at least checking out his set because who knows, maybe his comedy is right up your alley.

Bo returns to the stage, and delivers on his multiple talents - playing instruments(mostly "air" ones) and comedy - musical(including making it largely out of sampled sounds), verbal and physical. He goes for wordplay, the clever, and the silly, with universal jokes, rather than ones that will date this.

As usual, he prioritizes being consistently funny and challenging over having one specific focus - with that said, he does get rather introspective(such as the "two halves of the brain" bit), and one can tell that he has grown since he launched on the internet. Of course, this doesn't mean that he is unrecognizable, far from it. His brand and identity remain intact, and in-between, sometimes even in, the intellectual parts, he gets just as immature as we want him to.

Awkwardness is embraced, not shied away from. That of himself, and some of the things that go into shaping a show like this - yes, he does go as meta and self-referential as usual(a child of YouTube, that much is clear). We can follow his line of thinking, and yet he throws curve-balls our way. Plain and simple, we never, for a second, know exactly what he's going to do next, and whenever he jumps tracks in his train of thought, the audience(including the live ones for the video recording of this) loves it. It is simply that carefully crafted.

Among his material are social problems(with an indictment of himself and other artists, making this simultaneously the illness and the cure, the reason for needing, and the actual pursuing of, therapy), integrity, religion, sexuality, etc. At the time of writing this, the entire well-paced 60-minute presentation is up on, and thus endorsed by, his own channel, so legally free to watch.

There is brutal and disturbing imagery in this. I recommend this to any fan of Burnham. 8/10

When I first saw 'what', I was expecting levels of brilliance which were on par with his previous special 'words words words'. Did it surpass my expectations? Indeed it did. There are many highlights to this daring, creative and catchy comedy special. When you watch this special, it truly gets ingrained in your mind. This has happened to me so much that I can do the entire opening segment by heart(not as good as Bo). Notable songs include, repeat stuff, from god's perspective, we think we know you, sad and left brain, right brain. This comedy special will keep you laughing and have you talking about it for a long time. Overall, 9.2/10.