Brett Goldstein: Burning Man

Racing into the room in an ultraviolet headdress with neon wristbands and glow sticks, to the thumping of a generic dance track, Brett Goldstein starts his show with a rare burst of energy. The softly spoken standup explains that the reason he decided to start the show in such a manner is because he doesn’t really know how to start a comedy show. He’s not wrong. After dispensing with a risky-looking stag party, he goes into the story of how drugs have had a positive influence on his life. A tricky task that Goldstein himself admits, due to the cautionary tales so often associated with mind-altering drugs. He starts slowly but rarely breaks his easy-going gait, meaning the audience will follow him anywhere – even through scatological practices with his imagined wife, and the tricky waters of Cosby and Saville.

Goldstein is a master storyteller, who follows comfortably through his subjects with an ease that most comedians would kill for. This makes his journey from his first inadvertently taken ecstasy pill to his mistaken heroin binge all the more easy to swallow; a not-so-safe-for-kids message of ‘drugs are bad, but they’re also wicked’. The whole show culminates in a trip to San Francisco’s hippy mecca Burning Man, to rediscover what it is to make comedy after a mother’s well meaning question was received with such existentialism. Goldstein might not find all the answers, but you’ll love listening to him ask the questions.