Adam Hills had sold out. Lucky punters who chose to see the earlier Local Standup show got the first pick of the seats for Adam’s show. While waiting outside, queued in the courtyard, entertainment had been organized in the form of a scantily clad Goth couple showing off their sideshow skills. We were soon welcomed up the many stairs into the ‘The Venue’, a large, wonderful, (though hot) attic like space, with a tin foil ceiling, strewn with many fairly lights.
Adam came straight on to welcome everyone and get to know selected audience members including a chaplain in shorts, still studying his craft at college, 2 people from Scotland, a 12 yr old boy and a young engineer. He then introduced his warm-up act Adam Rosenbachs who writes for Spicks & Specks and kept the crowd entertained. I felt this scenario worked well – Adam warming up for his warm-up act. The audience had come to see Hills and got to see him straight up. I’ve seen shows where an audience deflates, because they are all hyped up to see the star and then a different person comes on who wasn’t advertised. It’s not really fair on the warm-up act to face an impatient grumpy crowd.
Hills is a master of audience engagement. I’ve watched him get better at this over the years until it’s just effortless. He follows through with anything interesting that comes up and just goes with it. Then when that idea is played out he can seamlessly work his way back into his routine. The best example of this was his brilliant spontaneous finale at his second and final show in Hobart. I’d not seen it before but he said that he hadn’t done it in a long time. He called it ‘Instant Boy Band’. Inspired by an audience member who was an Engineer but who Adam thought looked more like a boy band singer, Adam asked if the audience had to rush off home and everyone shouted ‘Nooooo’ so he put the band together for us. The engineer was unceremoniously dragged on stage along with the young Chaplain in training and 3 other young men who were given personas, stances and a minimum of choreography. He sang lead, while giving them cues to do their stuff behind him. It was an exhilarating, joyful way to end his final show at the Hobart comedy Festival and made us all feel like we had been part of a special spontaneous moment in a very special, fabulous show.