Radio666fm

I first saw the show Characterful & Joymonger, in its edited version on the ABC, over a week ago. I assumed it would be a one off broadcast of a live show by one of my favourite comedians, Adam Hills. Imagine my joy when a search on the ABC site for information about the program, revealed that it was out on DVD.

Adam Hills is an Australian comedian, best known for his work on the music trivia show, Spicks and Specks. Not only is Adam a big hearted, good natured comedian, unafraid of diversity, watch any of his DVD’s or TV’s shows to witness the fact [and how much he actually loves people], he is also “Deaf Aware”.

He often has a sign interpreter at some of his shows. Characterful & Joymonger [the DVD] not only features a sign language interpreter, whom we see often, but…… but Adam incorporates her into his show, drawing the audiences attention to her, giving the audience a bit of Deaf Awareness, publicly showing his appreciation of her work, and making her repeat signs for the rude words. Yes, I know it is the usual Hearing thing to be fascinated by linguistic differences in swearing, but Adam is a big hearted guy who does it in a genuine spirit of curiosity and good natured humour.

As with any DVD, there are extras, and they are worth viewing. Especially the backstage shenanigans that feature the said sign language interpreter, and asking an elderly member of the audience of she was OK with his swearing. Her blithe reply was, “She’s heard worse.” Summat like that. AND the exchange with someone he thought was Deaf but turned out to be another sign language interpreter.

But what sets Characterful & Joymonger apart from the plethora of captioned and subtitled DVD’s, is the use of invision [ I think I got that right. Correct me in the comments, if I got that wrong] to bring up the sign interpreter in a separate window. I was gobsmacked to see this feature. I would have been content with the captions, as I love watching this guy.. but the addition of invision raised my estimation of him.

I hope he continues to make all his work as accessible as possible.

This is a double thumbs up for the man! Now go buy the DVD. HERE!