Inside

Instead of a stage and a crowded theater, the special takes place in a single wood-paneled room. Bo Burnham spent the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic alone in a Los Angeles guest house, writing, filming, editing, and performing a collection of musical numbers that double as a diary of isolation. The result is a claustrophobic portrait of a performer trying to entertain an audience that isn’t there, using nothing but synthesizers, a camera rig, and an increasingly cluttered space.

The project came five years after Burnham walked away from live stand-up following a series of onstage panic attacks. During his hiatus, he directed the film Eighth Grade and took supporting acting roles, but the pandemic pulled him back to solo creation. He set up his gear in a detached guest house in Los Angeles—a space that happened to sit on the property used as Nancy’s house in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. Over 87 minutes, Burnham moves from synth-pop tracks like ‘Bezos I’ and ‘Sexting’ to cynical observations on digital life in ‘Welcome to the Internet’ and ‘White Woman’s Instagram’. Behind-the-scenes clips show him adjusting spotlights, testing audio, and watching his own footage, emphasizing the solitary grind of the production.

The project was highly praised for capturing the weird, anxious mood of 2020. It went on to win three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing and Directing for a Variety Special, and a Peabody Award. The soundtrack album was certified platinum, and ‘All Eyes On Me’ won a Grammy, cementing the experiment as a major success despite the Recording Academy controversially ruling the full album ineligible for the Best Comedy Album category.