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Comedy Culture

Breakout boy

JAMES ADOMIAN appearing in HBO PRESENTS FUNNY AS HELL LIVE with Rory Scovel, the Lucas Brothers and host Jon Dore at the Randolph Theatre (736 Bathurst), tonight (Thursday, March 21) at 7:30 and 10 pm. $28.50. cmw.net. Also, see listings.

With hordes of too-cool-for-school bands playing Canadian Music Week, the sprawling fest is wise to also offer an impressive slate of comedians to lighten the mood. Anchored by well-known Canadian commodities like Dave Foley and Jon Dore, CMW also introduces a crop of worthy up-and-coming comics to a wider audience, including rising New York talent James Adomian.

Known for his hilarious celebrity impersonations and queer-friendly observational humour, Adomian enjoyed a breakout year in 2012. He released his first album, Low Hangin Fruit, to wide acclaim, and was featured in the New York Times as the face of a new wave of gay male comics finding mainstream success.

“I’ve been obsessed with comedy since the moment I could understand it,” says Adomian on the phone from a tour stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “If you go way back to when I was a kid, I loved Tim Curry in Clue and Carol Burnett on TV, but in high school it was Phil Hartman, Chris Farley and Bill Hicks.”

Born in Nebraska but transplanted to California, Adomian started out doing sketch before transitioning to stand-up, but says his material still retains that influence – especially when it comes to his spot-on impressions of larger-than-life celebrities like Jesse Ventura, George W. Bush and Orson Welles.

“I like to impersonate people who have a really distinct voice but who also have an interesting point of view. Sometimes I hear people doing impressions and it’s like a magic trick or like, Hey, look what I can do’. I try to also make a funny point about the person by using their voice.

“Like Jesse Ventura – he’s a flamboyant wrestler who was a governor and now has this conspiracy show. It’s almost too much to believe it’s one person! When he speaks, it’s always in all caps. I find that people who are already caricatures of themselves usually work best.”

As for being pegged as the face of a new generation of gay comics, Adomian laughs.

“Not to put any more pressure on me! No, but seriously, there is a little bit of pressure and a sense of duty there. I mean, there have always been fantastic gay comedians, but now people are starting to appreciate them outside of just gay culture. There’s a whole group of gay comics coming up through the alternative and independent comedy scene rather than specifically in the gay comedy scene.

“I’m a queer guy, and a lot of my jokes are gay-friendly. I talk a lot about my life and being gay and out of the closet. I try to attack homophobia – and not just like in individual people or instances, but in things like the media, advertising and film.

“Like, I talk about gay villains a lot, because if you step back and look at cartoons and action movies, you realize that so many bad guys are presented as flamboyantly gay, and that’s not how bad guys are in real life. Why is that?”

In addition to his growing string of tour dates and frequent podcast guest spots, Adomian is flirting with TV, hinting that he’s got the green light from a “small but awesome network” to make a pilot this summer.

Sexuality and identity politics aside, Adomian says he thinks his work appeals to a wide audience he tries to balance his sharp political wit with a healthy dose of irreverence.

“Being a comedian liberates you from the burden of having to be a serious person. You can talk about dark and dangerous topics that are very political in nature, and if you do it skilfully, most people will walk away laughing. I have to keep it silly so it’s still fun for the audience and for me as well.”

stage@nowtoronto.com

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