I had the privelege of seeing ABC Spicks and Specks host Adam Hills live on stage at the Atheum in Melbourne Saturday night. As you might be able to gather from the one usable picture I took, we were in the back row in the dress circle, so far from the action.
But it didn’t matter. Hills was brilliant.
He came on stage initially to warn us that the show was being filmed for a DVD, and that turned into a 10 minute act before the actual show started.The show itself was brilliant, perhaps better in the second half, but even Hills told the audience that, as the night before and our show were being combined for the DVD. There were issues with the lights, we were lucky as the girl signing the show was in just the right position to stop the lights shining in our eyes, but the entire dress circle complained after the intermission. The fixing of the lights became, as Hills described, one of the extras on the DVD.
Those who know him through the ABC show haven’t seen the full Hills. He swears, not a lot, but Fuck gets a good work out, and only when it adds to the effect. I can honestly say that I didn’t stop laughing through the entire show. The only time the audience stopped laughing is when he was relating a story about a drunk guy who gave him a joke in Adelaide: the context was funny, but he warned the joke wasn’t.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Hills is a Shire boy (Sutherland Shire, Sydney), as am I originally, but splits his time now between Melbourne and the UK.
I can only compare him to what I’ve seen this year. The Chaser live was the last show I saw, and as much as I enjoyed it immenseley, Hills was better. Compared to Rove, who I also saw on stage, Hills is in such a different league its not funny.
