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Adam Hills: from Midday stagehand to Tonight show host

Adam Hills was once a stagehand on Midday for Ray Martin. Next year, life comes full circle as he finally becomes a Tonight show host himself.

Adam Hills resisted the lure of commercial television for his new Tonight show, Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight, coming to ABC1 in 2011.

Widely popular with audiences and critics, Hills is now sitting in the position where he can pick and choose his next project. He tells TV Tonight he chose to stay with the public broadcaster rather than cross to the dark side.

“I wanted to do it at the ABC for a number of reasons,” he explains. “Firstly I wanted to keep making Spick and Specks at the same time, and I couldn’t have done that if I was anywhere else.

“Secondly, I wanted to work with the people I knew and felt comfortable around. And by that I mean like the floor crew. The floor crew that we have on Spicks will be the same floor crew for In Gordon Street Tonight.

“After 250 odd episodes of Spicks and Specks they know how I like to work.

“Plus what the ABC offers a comedian that the commercials don’t is creative freedom. They let you push the boat out and try new things. I mean without going on a spruiker’s mission, when you look at Judith Lucy, Frank Woodley, Gruen Transfer, Adam Richards… when you look at those names they are people who aren’t chasing the almighty dollar. They have an idea for a show and the ABC basically said ‘Yes,'” he says.

“I feel pretty comfortable that Kim (Dalton) is going to let me make the show that I want to make. And that’s the reason to do it at the ABC.”

Aside from promising it will draw upon his stand-up background, Hills isn’t giving much away about the new format, and ABC isn’t letting him, either.

So let’s start from scratch. The show is 12 x 1 hour episodes. But will it be Live?

“Not sure.”

Band?

“Probably.”

Sidekick?

“Probably,” he repeats.

“We filmed some episodes in July before the show was commissioned, so we could work out what the show was and what kind of show we wanted to do. From that we kind of worked out what worked and what didn’t.

“We know which elements work, but we don’t know which ones will stay.

“So when I say ‘probably’ that’s a genuine ‘probably.’

”It’s a talk show combining everything I’ve learned as a stand-up with everything I’ve learned doing a journalism degree.”

Hills was studying Mass Communications at Macquarie University when he says he discovered stand-up comedy halfway through the degree. His plan was to pursue radio journalism but his CV was dotted by a variety of unusual jobs.

“When I left I worked as a tennis coach, and a stand-up comic, and then got a day-job as a stagehand at Channel Nine in Sydney,” he says.

“At one point I was at a radio station from 4am til midday, went home and had 2 hours sleep and then back to Channel Nine until about 4 in the afternoon. We’d pull down the Midday set (during Ray Martin’s reign), put up A Current Affair (during Jana Wendt’s reign). Then we’d pull down A Current Affair and there was a late-night news show that Clive Robertson was hosting. He went from Seven to Nine.

“And I would have to knock off early at 3:30am to go back to the radio station to write for Agro who was doing the breakfast show for 2DAY FM.

“At one point it was a 36 hour period where I had no sleep.”

Later he became an audience warm-up man for a sports show on Channel TEN hosted by Mike Gibson.

Now having a hit panel show on ABC, Gold Logie nominations and sell-out stand-up tours, Hills will finally get to fulfill a role many have waited to see him realise: the host of a Tonight show.

“We don’t really have Tonight shows in Australia,” he suggests. “There is a distinction between a Tonight show and a talk show, which I am not entirely across. So possibly the best way to describe In Gordon Street Tonight is it’s somewhere between a Tonight show and a talk show.

“But it’s more Denton than Ricki Lake. That may be our new slogan for the show.”

15 Responses

  1. Hopefully in the famous Countdown and Big Gig studio, something special will emerge to rescusitate variety in this country. Adam is good talent, and if it is piloted and given enough budget to make a good go of it – it could be a hit.

  2. So exciting – Adam Hills is a great talent – we definitely need a good tonight show again on the tele with lots of fun, interviews, stand up and music .

  3. @JohnTV – the difference can be that if something incredibly newsworthy happens between the taping and the airing, it feels out of date. Live TV is great to turn to when there is big news. See: the PM spill this year, and Good News Week having to be re-filmed to make the into relevant.

  4. Love Adam Hills, so I hope it does well. I’m not a fan of talk shows, they tend to be vehicles for actors etc to spruik their latest movie/show. That being said, It is the ABC so there is hope this show won’t go to far down that parth and dare to be different.

  5. Live smive !!! If the host is good, the format is good and the talent is good, it doesn’t matter if the show is live or not.

    All the US and UK tonight shows are recorded and not Live. They are recorded as Live to tape so if something goes wrong they keep going. Changes only really occur if there is a legal issue.

  6. I’m really looking forward to this, Adam Hills is such an interesting character in his own right that it’s going to make this show very interesting.

    If it takes off watch the Commerical Networks dive head long back into late night talk shows.

  7. Ok.. looking forward to seeing how this show goes. Just hope it’s live and can allow for music acts local and overseas as well as guests. Otherwise there’s only the return of Hey Hey to hope for (unless another show is coming from say Micallef or Hamish & Andy?)

  8. Only 12 eps? I would like to see an Australian tonight show, live, 3 nights a week. Monday Wednesday Friday perhaps. I understand that budget and celebrities are lacking here compared to five night a week US Tonight shows. So just 3 x 45 min a week could easily suffice.

    Doesn’t have to be high budget. I think what people used to like about HHIS was the low budget ‘real’ feel. Sure it was out of date in 2010, but Adam Hills would do great with a show a few nights a week.

  9. It’s great to see more talk/variety on the air because this is a chance for bands and comedians to get their time on the air and reach an audience that might not go to their concert or performance usually.

    That’s where Somers was right, these type of artists need programmes on tv to show off their talents.

    With all his experience, Hills has had a long apprenticeship, and I’m sure his show will be a good one. Hopefully they can extend it beyond the original 3 months.

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