Adam Richard X
Adam Richard X
The title of Adam Richard’s show X, ten in roman numerals, refers to the fact that this is Adam’s tenth outing (as it were) at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He told us that he was playing the same room that he played back then, which begs the question has he moved on? Well with a professional job on breakfast radio and offers to do reality television, I’m sure his lifestyle has improved, but he’s basically the same old gloriously bitchy Adam.
The house music was of the variety that might be played on the radio station where Adam Richards works and I imagine that many in the audience were fans of his radio work. Maybe Adam was worried about their expectations. He sort of crept onto the stage with a “Hi everyone” and did a charming little sort of disclaimer warning us of course language and that the show might be a bit dirtier than his radio work. He then popped back behind the curtains and gave himself a fabulous intro to the strains of “The Bitch is Back”
So here he was, ready to bitch it up gleefully with us once again. So what if his reality TV show ‘Celebrity Dog School’ was cancelled after only a few weeks? It gave him heaps of material. He wasn’t afraid to admit that he was one of the ‘non celebrities’ in the show and gave us all the goss on stuff that went on behind the scenes. He wondered why he kept being asked to be on family friendly shows like this, ‘Spicks & Specks’ or ‘Australia’s Got Talent?’ when he hates kids! This led him into guiding us through some of the less family friendly aspects of the gay lifestyle, the sort of things they wouldn’t mention on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or Will and Grace. The Toilets used for brief meetings called ‘Beats’, glory holes, gay sauna encounters, Twinks vs Bears and so on. These were quite eye opening for the uninitiated and possibly the reason for the warning at the beginning, otherwise I didn’t think he ever became terribly offensive.
He did express a hankering for settling down though and how a lot of the gay lifestyle is not really very helpful in this regard. This led to gay weddings and he dealt with a potentially controversial topic in a very funny and engaging way. The other issue that he handled with grace is the current teen use of the word “gay” to equal crap. Instead of getting angry about it, he supposed that maybe a lot of things gays love – like The Young Divas and Kylie – are crap. This segued into cancer jokes that got him some negative publicity at last year’s festival to a serious bit about losing an unnamed friend, to funerals and how he would like his funeral to be.
What I liked most about this show was how well it all flowed together and how well balanced it was. A bit of celebrity gossip, as is expected of him, some palatably presented insights into the gay world, some gentle yet pointed jabs at society’s treatment of gays and laughs all the way through. This is definitely a ‘Gay show for the straight guy (girl)’. He’s been doing this for ten years and he does it very well.
Adam is performing from Tues to Sun until April 29. See the “Festival Website”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/show/147/ for further details.