We sat down for an exclusive chat with Burt Williamson ahead of their show 104kg of Pure Banter heading to Voodoo Rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe – 2nd August – 24th August. Tickets here.
Can you summarise your show in two lines?
A powerful show that embraces a heavy topic: myself. Mixing my trademark aplomb with goofy punchlines and densely worded stand-up.
First of all – 104kg of Pure Banter is an eye-catching title. Did it come to you instantly, or was there a list of potential names with even more chaos?
I always try to choose a show title that is an active pitch to whoever is reading it, so many will have something lovely and conceptual, but at the Fringe there are so many things to go see I feel like you need to grab someone from the get go. When I did my debut, 200 IQ Audience Only (No Munters) I had people repeatedly telling me they only took a chance on me because they liked my title so I’ve stuck with something bold ever since. If I can get you laughing before you’re already in the show, we’re probably going to have a lovely hour together.
The show plays with big questions around identity and how we define ourselves in 2025. What made you want to tackle that head-on this year?
I’ve been going through a bit of a soul-searching year, I had a health issue in October and have been left with chronic pain. It brought a lot of things into perspective that I’d never stopped to ask myself about, such as why and how much my own agency was a key part of my identity. I’m doing pretty well and it wasn’t serious but definitely enough to knock my confidence in a way that it hadn’t been in a fair while. I’d also noticed more of my friends finding and claiming new identities, particularly mental health diagnoses and thought it might be an interesting topic to explore earnestly and see whether I should also looking at those paths. I’m keen to say that this isn’t a show where I got at the end ‘I’ve got this’ but I feel like we’re in an empowering moment for a lot of people who haven’t had these labels to communicate themselves before.
You’ve performed stand-up, done improv and produced shows – how does wearing all those hats shape your writing and performance?
I really think starting out in improv really helped me with crowd work in particular, seeing that relationship with the audience as a collaborative experience rather than a combative one as some clips online might have you believe. For the written part of stand-up it’s emboldened me to be a bit more loose with material than I might have been otherwise. When I was starting out, all my stuff was so prescribed and rigid. Now I’m able to bring more of the improv in, it really helps me breathe life into jokes that might not have otherwise gotten off the ground. That being said it always comes back to writing to some degree, no amount of goofy charm and whimsy is enough to make something that isn’t funny funny. Producing shows definitely helped me get stage time and the financial independence to do comedy but it’s a double edged sword. That time running events and doing admin is time not writing or performing. It’s hard to be fully present at a live show on stage if you’re the one that’s also responsible for the door security and tech. You can’t fully be in the moment if you’re simultaneously required to manage it.
How has your voice evolved since 200 IQ Audience Only? Are you digging deeper, getting sillier… or both?
I think I’m sillier? I guess the honest answer is that I don’t fully know. I’m doing stand-up as much as I can and I’m certain I’ve changed, but it’s incremental. I’ve always been silly but I think I’m better at being with the audience now and letting them know when the jokes on me. Very early on I’d sometimes struggle in communicating that but that’s something you push through just by moving closer to your authentic voice. Maybe that’s wishy washy to say? But I do believe it. I’m more me than I’ve ever been and that makes stand-up easier, my work and routines are less rigid now which makes them better but also more challenging to perform. Sometimes I miss the days where I could wear jokes like armour. There we go! That’s it, this is was just a long winded way of saying I’m more vulnerable and silly. Yeah, that.
What’s the most memorable reaction you’ve had so far to your work – either online or in the room?
I’ve genuinely been astounded that people I’ve never met have watched my YouTube specials online and then told me they like it. Online can sometimes feel like shouting into the void and the fact that someone, who has never seen me before, can watch me online and then come see me live is beyond exciting. It’s happened only a handful of times but stuff like that is resilience you can store away for a rainy day. If that’s too sincere though, once I did a gig where a man in the audience burped so loud my microphone picked it up and it echoed through the speaker.