Adam Hills
Adam Hills Fringe Club January 7-12 You'd bong comedian Adam Hills. Everyone in the audience seemed to bong him and by all accounts he's bonged in his native Australia and in Dublin where he spends half the year.
Why 'bong'? Well, Hills' My Own Little World stand-up show may well turn out to be the highlight of this month's Star Alliance City Festival at the Fringe.
He came out firing and continued to rattle off his act at machine-gun speed for more than an hour. You would bong that wouldn't you.
And he took audience participation to a new level. From the beginning poor Paul Summers must have rued reading an article in which Hills' claims not to pick on members of the front row.
Within minutes, it was a bemused but sporting Mr Summers whom Hills put in the spotlight, getting him to soak up the same kind of applause Hills got when he first came on stage.
'What other profession in the world can you get a round of applause before you even start work?' Hills observed. 'Imagine simply logging on in the morning and everyone screams, 'wow, yeah, logged on'.' Hills first appeared as a 19-year-old at the Sydney Comedy Store in 1989, and after five years in radio returned to the stage where he found considerable success. Last year, he took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm.
And audiences are going to continue to bong him. His material is fresh and approach original, with his quick-fire adlibbing cementing the act together.
He doesn't tell gags, he makes observations, and stirs them all into his own little world. His section on national anthems had one guy in the audience virtually crying. Ever heard the Canadian national anthem to the tune of Bryan Adams' Summer of '69 ? (Ever heard the Canadian national anthem?) His look at national stereotypes - an old topic but delivered in a new way - was impressive, and delighted the many different nationalities in the audience. He even managed to get away with a politically incorrect slight at the Germans, who were there in numbers. Well, by that stage, he'd got everyone eating out of his hand.
And why use the right words all the time? Why not substitute 'bong' for 'love' and weave it into a song? Hills is more than value for money and has a sparkling career ahead. I'm not ashamed to say, I bonged him.