No more Mr Nasty

Brendon Burns is an angry man - and he's had about enough of it. For the past few years, the outspoken comic from Perth, Western Australia, has been one of the circuit's most stimulating sources of vitriol. Taboos? Life's too short.

Last year's show, Not For Everyone, saw him swinging through gags about Down's Syndrome, the Middle East and anti-war marchers: 'Well done - that really changed things.'

An enemy of jingoism and political correctness, Burns was tough on George W Bush and tough on lazy, anti-American prejudice: After all, 'there's thick f***s everywhere'. He has been compared to Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce. People think of him as a sort of comedy warrior. He thinks they've got the wrong guy.

'Something has happened in my life and I realised I've got to make some changes,' says Burns, 33. 'I know all those other people who do the angry, nasty stuff and the fact is they're not happy people. It's no way to live your life. OK, all my heroes might have been like that but all my heroes are dead.'

This is why the comic's latest show, which plays in an extended form at the Soho Theatre this week before slimming down to an hour for Edinburgh, will be the last outing for Brendon Burns as we know him.

After that, no more Mr Nasty Guy. The first half will give his devoted fans more or less what they expect - 'Burnsy', the swaggering opinion-jockey. But in the second half he's Brendon, his less abrasive, offstage self. The two will fight it out at the end.

He expects it will lose him fans and maybe gain him new ones. But it has to be done. 'People often say they're surprised at what I'm like in real life,' says Burns, who's lived in London for ten years.

'I've always known this dark, nasty persona was a phoney and I thought I'd left hints. But people didn't pick up on it. I suppose they're disenchanted in this day and age, but they've started putting their faith in comedians. They're going: "Where are the preachers?" I'm going: "They're f***ing clowns. Calm down!"'

Burns's bullish onstage exterior seems like an exaggeration of his offstage self rather than a polar opposite. But this annoyance has a gentle side that is evident when he refers to his son, Luke.

And he's highly self-critical, particularly about his political material: 'It's difficult to be funny about that kind of thing and, when you manage it, people give it more weight than it deserves.'