Adam Hills is spreading positive vibes with a new stand-up comedy tour.
The five-time Gold Logie nominee has returned to our shores with a new comedy tour and a third season of the revamped Adam Hills Tonight. The new season has a more grown-up agenda, with Adam being given a desk and some big name interviews: “What we’re doing this year is pre-recorded interviews so we can get people who aren’t necessarily available on a Monday night but that can sit down and have a chat … Bert Newton’s going to come on, which I’m really excited about. I haven’t seen Burt get interviewed on telly for ages so I really want to have a good chat with him.”
It’s not just Australian audiences who love him; Adam recently took the UK by storm with his hit show The Last Leg, which has been confirmed for a second season. Perhaps his uniquely hilarious brand of Aussie positivity is the reason for his UK success. “I think the Aussie attitude, and my attitude, is to celebrate things and the UK attitude is always to mock things and to put them down, so people love seeing something different. For someone to be on telly going, ‘hey! Let’s talk things up and make fun of them and be positive!’ I just don’t think they’re used to it.”
Now touring with his new stand up show, Happyism, Adam is spreading that positivity some more with a show that centres around, well, not being a dick. “It’s a long story, but I appeared on an American TV show a couple of years ago trying put-down jokes, like negative jokes, and I died because that’s not what I’m good at. And then I performed on stage with The Muppets last year and I was reminded that your performance is about putting out positive energy, it’s not about being a dick! I was trying to be a dick for comedy purposes and it wasn’t working, so the main theme of the show is about being consciously positive.”
Having toured extensively around Australia and overseas, the upbeat comedian has had some strange and hilarious touring experiences. “I did a show in Whitehaven in the top east corner of England and my manager sent me a fruit basket that was so good that I couldn’t possibly eat it or take it with me so I ended up giving fruit out to the audience. And then it was all topped off when they told me that the neighbouring town was called Cockermouth – which I thought was just hilarious – and then at the end of the night I went to get Chinese on the way home and half the audience were at the Chinese shop!”
With years of experience on the stage and a repertoire of quality material, Adam says he is becoming more daring with the jokes that he presents in his shows and this tour is no different. “Sometimes I do come up with jokes and think, ‘oh, I could never say that’, but as I get older and better at what I do, I’m becoming more likely to go, ‘I’m going to try that, I can make that joke work’. There are a couple that I’ve tried in my new show that the audience just don’t go with. I had a joke about how women go a little bit mental when they’re pregnant and my line was, ‘the reason women glow when they’re pregnant is because they’re toxic’. That joke didn’t work so well.”
Adam Hills Tour Dates:
Sat Jun 01 — National Convention Centre, Royal Theatre (Canberra)Fri Jun 14 — Convention & Exhibition Centre (Brisbane)
Sat Jun 15 — Convention & Exhibition Centre (Brisbane)
Sat Jun 29 — Thebarton Theatre (Adelaide)
Fri Jul 12 — Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
Sat Jul 13 — Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
