“I’M REALLY JUST PLEASED TO HAVE AN AUDIENCE”
DM Will Adamsdale is an English actor playing an American motivational speaker, Jackson, whose principles encourage the pursuit of pointless activities. Adamsdale found himself playing to small but fervent crowds until word of mouth. It’s a show that skis so far off-piste as to be almost indescribable. No other show has been quite so gleefully inventive.
KB Completely innovative. Will Adamsdale, who plays Jackson, has taken a well-trodden genre and turned it on its head. I have now begun to see the world in a Jacksonian way. His building of pointless tasks until he achieves what he calls a Compound Jackson is simply a joy to behold. He reiterates the idea that his theory is pointlessness so many times that you begin to see the point of it all.
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WILL ADAMSDALE I got into this by working at the BAC, where they really encourage performers to experiment and take things to extremes. I started out playing to small crowds, eight people to be exact, but it didn’t matter, it’s better for the character as it highlights his delusions that he’s someone important. Mind you, in his mind, he’s always playing to 2,000-seaters. In a way it’s got harder with bigger audiences to exploit that disparity. It started out as a parody but I try and move away from that as much as possible. I got talking to some comedians and found out that motivational speakers were a comedy cliché. I hadn’t realised that. I thought I was being really original! It feels nuts to be nominated. I don’t feel like I should be here. I’m just really pleased to have an audience.