one4review | On 23, Aug 2026

The Magneto of comedy arrives resplendent in black and has drawn together a big audience tonight. Some have seen her before, some are newbies, but after an impressive VT it’s obvious everyone is welcome. Burton asks the audience what they are obsessed with, and it’s a mixed crowd: D&D, sport, numbers and everything in between.

Burton then dives playfully into her own nerd background and her relationship with her partner. Together they do Comic-Con and cosplay, which perhaps explains her own particular superhero origin story. Her crushes on the more obscure characters – Gambit and Emma Frost to the more bizarre Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even the Muppets, and she makes it seem like perfect sense.

There is plenty of visual material to help the various comic, gaming and pop-culture references land, with quizzes, cosplay photo shoots, audience interaction and an impressively colourful slide deck backing up her points. Burton makes it gloriously together, like a yellow spandex-covered cape-wielding Hannah Fry.

The discussion of queer coding, from Valkyrie onwards, adds a further layer, but one of the strongest sections examines the misogyny inherent in men drawing female characters in comics. Burton is refreshingly honest about her own relationship with feminism, admitting that while she can be a card-carrying feminist, occasionally her golden tiara slips. That self-awareness makes the material land even harder.

And that is Burton’s superpower. She isn’t just one type of nerd, feminist, comic-book obsessive or villain. She picks and chooses the best bits, throws them into the mix and somehow makes the whole thing work.

Villain Era is a glorious deep plunge into comics, gaming, superheroes, villainy and all the strange strands in between. It is an ideal hour for anyone who enjoys disappearing into the further reaches of the internet and emerging several hours later as an expert on something nobody else cares about.

In the end, glittery soul Burton is the nerd ray of hope we need in these end-of-days times. An escape through a realm where girls might wanna have fun, but villains definitely get the best costumes and dialogue.
****
Reviewed By Steve H
18.30 to 19.30
Gilded Balloon Turret
Until 30th August