A review of Adam Hills: Shoes Half Full, Fringe 2024

This blogger is in pain and suffers from a chronic, relentless hurt that shapes his life. I have arthritis and a rare condition that I like to sum up as ‘nightmare arthritis’.

Adam Hill is a champion of the disabled and wears a prosthetic foot.

I get this out of the way first because I’ve no idea what it’s like to be in the audience of an Adam Hill gig as someone without a disability. Is it as funny and heart-warmingly gorgeous if you’re not one of us?

Wholesome woke nonsense? Not so. Hills cuts close to the bone and dives headfirst into transgender issues while admitting that he does not get it. However, he zones in on the key issue – don’t be a dick about it, and if you stick to that, then the clumsy errors you might make will be forgiven.

There are disabled jokes aplenty, and they are allowed.

“Adam Hills: Shoes Half Full” is in the Assembly Rooms: Music Hall which is a glorious, accessible and large venue. It looked to me as if there wasn’t an empty (unreserved) seat in the house tonight.

Tone

Adam Hills is friendly, warm and charismatic. He’s not mean, but he’s not shy about taking the piss, being controversial or even argumentative. For example, there’s a story of him going up against a bouncer or about taking out a disabled rugby player on the pitch.

I suspect if you’re not familiar with Adam Hills and you are disabled and unfortunately used to being the brunt of jokes, your caution radar might flare a few times during “Shoes Half Full”… however Hills knows what he’s doing. He’ll either pre-warn or post-joke reassure. As I said, I believe he’s able to make affirmative disabled jokes because he speaks with authority and as one of us. It’s not as if he punches down and makes fun of us. He calls it as it is, knowing first-hand how it is.

There’s so much energy in this show. Adam Hills strides around the huge Assembly Rooms stage, towing a hilariously long microphone cable in his wake.

There are also a lot of distractions in “Shoes Half Full”. We started off by pausing to write a tweet and then ended up checking the reactions he got. Obviously, there was time to throw shade at Musk in between the two.

I’m not sure Adam Hills is a safe comedian to take your mum or dad to see, but he is a great person to take your kids to see. They’ll grow up better. I also think you should take any date to see Hills if he is in town as their reaction will be importantly telling.

What to expect

There’s audience participation, and he likes to chat with the crowd. At the start of the gig, the lights will go up so he can see who he’s talking to, and I doubt they’ll go down.

If you’re near the front or come in late, you could well get singled out. Importantly, Adam Hills isn’t cruel. He’ll just want a chat, but whether you’re up for that or not, when there are hundreds of us watching, it might not be your thing.

“Shoes Half Full” is a show, though, and not an hour of Hills interacting with the audience. I’d say the first sixth is with the audience and depending on how that goes that might be all but he’s a smart guy and if a gag can be tied back to previously unearthed audience gem then then he’ll do that.

Assembly Rooms: Music Hall is a good venue for people on sticks but there’s waiting and walking. I have seen wheelchairs there. Heck, I’ve helped get wheelchairs there.

Overall

“Adam Hills: Shoes Half Full” is a happy blast, and I left feeling better than I had felt on the way in. (I presume) you don’t have to be disabled to enjoy every second of the show and I’m sure you’ll be recharged through laughter.