Bo burnham

How to Become a Tyrant (Netflix) is ideal history TV for Generation No Attention Span. Presented in six bite-sized chunks by Peter Dinklage, aka the ‘Imp’ Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, it tells you most of the things you need to know about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Gaddafi, Kim Il-Sung, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein, without obliging you to think or grapple with any tedious detail. Instead of examining the dictators individually, it explores their careers thematically, looking for the ingredients they have in common.

Inside, the new Netflix special from comedian Bo Burnham, was apparently written, directed, performed and edited solely by its star throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. An impressive feat. In the same timeframe, I posted literally thousands of tweets. What can I say? Some of us are just born productive. Inside was also filmed entirely in one room. It is a bare, depressing sort of room, uncomfortably reminiscent of the bare, depressing room of the angel-faced serial killer at the center of Takashi Miike's classic horror film Audition. Happily, Burnham is not keeping a captive in a trash bag. Still, the man has a lot of morbid cerebral fun with the question of whether he can leave the room or whether he is stuck there. Burnham’s creativity is to be welcomed.