Adam Hills

Just back from seeing Adam Hills at the Colchester Arts Centre which is pretty much the home of comedy as far as Colchester is concerned (although Punt & Dennis filled the Mercury Theatre last year which was pretty good going).

Good gig with a wide ranging audience: the front row alone included sixteen-year-olds and a couple in their fifties, a Mormon and an atheist, all of which we know because Adam Hills works the crowd very well. He stepped out from behind the curtain with enthusiasm and confidence and dove straight in exuding warmth and friendliness.

You might know Hills as the Aussie guy with the artificial leg on Mock the Week; although that fact has only been mentioned once on the show... but it's a bit of a show-stopper and you tend to remember it. It's a unique selling point (as we used to say in the magazine trade) and one he exploits superbly in the second half of his act which ended with him dancing to 'Footloose' (the most obvious gag of the whole set) on the bar with the younger members of the audience joining in the dancing and the older members sitting there thinking, "Should we... maybe... Yes, let's... or maybe not... oh, he's finished." Liberal by politics, conservative by nature, that's Colchester.