Adam Hess: Salmon

• Brian Donaldson
• 10 August 2015

This article is from 2015.

A human livewire sprints through a hugely enjoyable hour of half-truths

It’s not only Adam Hess who needs a long lie down after one of his shows: an audience would welcome a breather, too. His hour of Salmon feels like it zips by in half the time, manically delivered by the host and enthusiastically welcomed by its attendees.

Channelling the wildfire energies of Mark Watson and Rik Mayall (while his voice was surely separated at birth from Josh Howie’s), Hess rips through a torrent of subjects and incidents, taking pot-shots at former girlfriends (guess what he thinks ‘Lucy’ is short for?), getting understandably huffy at having being born on December 25th and recalling his propensity for having a nose bleed at the most inconvenient of moments.

Still, given that he admits stand-up comedy is essentially one long fib, it’s hard to know quite what is and isn’t true here. You will desperately want to believe his tale of being a paid scarecrow and there’s clearly no denying his assertion that he was something of a dweeb at school. A rather gauche antipodean (surely the only one in Edinburgh this month?) makes very little of his moment in the spotlight but it only serves to drive Hess on to hysterically over-compensate in the enthusiasm stakes. Relaxation tape not included.

Heroes @ The Hives, 226 0000, until 31 Aug, 5.20pm, £5 (or Pay What You Want).