Get the latest gossip

How Bill Burr Became a Voice of the People

“There’s no Beatlemania for a 56-year-old bald ginger,” says Burr. And yet his new stand-up special and a starring role in Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway arrive at a moment when, whether he’s praising Luigi Mangione or eviscerating the likes of Elon Musk, he can’t stop going viral for saying what many Americans are thinking.

The restaurant is a few blocks from the rehearsal space for the David Mamet play Glengarry Glen Ross, in which Burr stars opposite Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean, and freshly anointed Academy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Burr’s nonideological, anti–cancel culture, heavily male-leaning questioning of how the world works have fueled 18 years of his Monday Morning Podcast, currently nestled near the top of the comedy charts between Joe Rogan and Theo Von’s shows and Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert. The crowd at the club seems unprepared for the segue from the gentle comedy of , whose stand-up is predicated on how unintimidating he is, to Burr, who yells at the audience for acting like “80-year-olds on a cruise ship” when they don’t respond heartily enough to pro–United Healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione material.

Get the Android app