Adam Hills must be the nicest and most engaging comedian working the circuit today. Everytime he starts a show you feel like it must be as much fun for him as the first time. He started this year by racing into the audience and chatting to some of the latecomers as they were looking for seats. He does this so nicely that I have never seen anyone not give a frank and friendly answer. Tonight we had a man arrive with a French-English dictionary under his arm (over two inches think and hardback!), an Edinburgh resident who made all his friends come late because he lives the closest, three ladies celebrating birthdays (for whom we all sang), a mother and daughter from Virginia who see Adam every year and wanted to know about an incident from last years show (long story but the update to the godfather saga will be on Adam’s website) and a grumpy Austrian.
We then got into the scripted part of the evening as Adam told us about how he has started shouting at stupid rules and bigoted people, though only in his head. It isn’t something he is proud of and I’m sure many people in the audience agree with Adam that the world is being run by fools and madmen, but we were given examples of how it is possible to live happy and be joyous in everything you see and do. Every night for Adam’s shows is a different experience as he manages to weave the people he has met at the start into points in his stories, thus making us feel like a select group of individuals. It almost becomes that the jokes are just an added extra to an evening of sitting in the house of a person you really like (or like one of those old music hall singalongs round the piano we’re always told kept the British spirit up during the blitz). If you see one show this festival, see this. Then see everything else in a new light.
Visit the Fringe Website for full show details.