Honest, real, inspired, courageous and utterly engaging, this show was a rare and bleeding portion of cutting edge comedy.

Genuinely challenging performances which go beyond standard jokes about pets and partners come in a variety of forms, and Brendon Burns displayed many of them in a single sitting.

On the face of it, his character of "Burnsy" is challenging because he is a belligerent, abusive, woman-hating monster who says things you are not even supposed to think these days and makes you laugh hard at them.

But he also challenges our lazy views of the world by being so outwardly unlovable, while appearing to be undeniably and painfully right on a few of life's key issues. More than an oaf, he is a persecuted poet ablaze with angry ideas.

"People say attacking a woman is sexist, but those who do that are by that statement saying that all woman are effectively the same, so in fact they are being sexist themselves," he pointed out, amid the expletives and the jokes about the disabled.

"There's not even words for the kind of hate I have," he added.

Then, just as we were getting over the initial discomfort and settling into an evening of primal screaming and politics, Burns began to undercut his own creation.

Coming on in the second half as "Brendon", ostensibly not a character but the real comedian, he set about describing how he has sickened of this Jekyll and Hyde existence. This threw everyone faster than a chilli-eating bucking bronco.

He explained that it all comes down to the loss of the woman he loved and how he has to move on from that.

And "Brendon" felt very real, honest and open. The jokes slowed down but were more involved and self-deprecating. He even let it drift towards cuddly Izzard-land with a couple of bits about Dave his pet lizard.

Then "Burnsy" was back. "Brendon", struggled to be rid of him in a section of real drama and hilarity, during which he also attacked this multiple personality as a pointless, childish gimmick.

Who won? The audience, if they had managed to keep up.