CityLife

Interview: Adam Hills

Adam Hills

OUR time was more than up when comic Adam Hills’ next call came in, his phone beeping in the background of our conversation.

Though perfectly within his rights to end our interview there (CityLife had more than enough from the cheery Aussie to write up), Hills was more than happy to continue.

“I’ve got another call just coming in and as far as I know it’s a ten minute radio interview which means I’ve got to do it now. Can I give you a call back?”

After putting the phone down you half expect the follow up never to happen, he’s probably just being polite.

But no, 20 minutes later the phone rings and it’s Hills to finish the chat. How nice is that?

But then that’s Hills. Over the 20 years he’s been performing stand up, he’s become well known as a happy guy in among – as lovely as they are – a slightly grumpy lot on the circuit.

Age-aware

So is he showing signs of irritability in his approaching middle age?

“There is a little bit in the show about going on old man rants,” he confesses. “I’m starting to enjoy a good old man rant every now and again, but generally I’m quite cheery.”

With his 40th birthday looming next year, he has become more aware of his age, something that has seeped into his latest show Inflatable.

“As a comedian I realised I was getting older when I told a joke… and I don’t normally tell jokes, but I was in a car hire place in Adelaide and this 19 year old girl behind the counter said, ‘oh tell us a joke.’

“The only joke I could think of was the one I always tell, which is the inflatable boy that goes to a inflatable school where the teachers are inflatable and the buildings are inflatable. He gets into trouble for taking a pin to school and the headmaster says ‘you’ve let me down, you’ve let yourself down, you’ve let the whole school down.’

“It’s a childish joke and I know that, but her response was just to look at me and go, ‘oh that’s a dad joke!’ and that was when I went ‘oh my god, I’m actually getting old… I’m being accused of telling dad jokes.’”

'What the hell was that about?'

But there’s still much of the youthful enthusiasm about Hills’ show andso far the tour has presented some lovely performer/audience bonding moments.

“In Maidstone last week it was someone’s birthday but he wasn’t really celebrating it, so during the interval I challenged the audience to go out and find birthday presents for him.

“So he came back in the second half and there were balloons on the stage and cake and biscuits and various things that people had raided from their own handbags.”

Adams first tried stand up at the age of 19. As with many first gigs, buoyed by the presence of some mates in the crowd, it went well.

His second was patchier. “I got heckled and came back with a comeback that got a round of applause; and then the guy heckled me again and I folded and it was a proper ‘go backstage, put your head on your knees and just go, what the hell was that about?’ kind of death.

“But I still turned up the next week. Someone once put it to me that the best thing that can happen to you as a comedian is you die on stage really early on in your career because it’s such a horrible feeling that it does really make you question why you are doing it.”

Eternal optimist

He went on to be nominated for the Perrier award three times; and as well as many TV appearances over here, he’s a household name back in Australia, as he hosts music-based quiz show Spicks And Specks.

So he’ll be back off to Oz again soon? Just in time for the summer there. Best of both climates.

“Yes, definitely. I head over here in June just when it’s starting to get nice, I get a bit of winter, a bit of loveliness of dark days.

“Then just when it approaches Christmas – which is a lovely time to have dark days and be spending your time inside – suddenly it’s a 24-hour flight back to Australia where it’s long days, T-shirts and shorts and it’s too hot to go outside.

“So it’s a bit of a shock to the system, but apart from that it works out quite nicely.”

It takes an eternal optimist to find the good in English autumn weather.

Adam Hills
The Lowry
November 1, 2009