by Cláudio Alves

In 2016, Bo Burnham announced he was quitting live comedy. The artist, whose career started on Youtube, attributed the decision to a series of panic attacks he'd had while on stage during the tour of his latest show. When transforming said show, Make Happy, into a Netflix special, Burnham built the ending to resonate with a sense of finality that went beyond the end of the stand-up act. The smirking meta-performance reaches its zenith with a parody of a Kanye West rant, interrupted midway through by unexpected sincerity, a confession of the comedian's anxieties. After saying he hopes the audience is happy, he leaves, and the camera follows. Not backstage, but into Burnham's home, a nondescript white room with a lonely keyboard. The special ends with the instrument left behind after one last song, the funny man exiting through the door on the corner. He goes out of the shot, out of the show, out of his life as a comedian.

Five years later, after redirecting his attention to cinema both as a writer, director, and actor, Bo Burnham is back in that room. He's alone, performing once more. Like most of us, for the better part of 2020, he's Inside…