A great party guest should bring something special to the table, whether it’s humour, a sense of camaraderie or the ability to fascinate others. In this respect, Adam Buxton has everything covered.
Starting out in the mid-nineties as part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe, with future Attack the Block director Joe Cornish, they segued into TV, Sony Award-winning radio, pop promos and commercials. What began as almost adolescent humour – the duo had been friends since their teens – initially spoofs and parodies, delivered with a DIY ethic, their work grew in sophistication. In the heady period in which audio-blogging received a new name – podcasting – and Apple phones gained a new app for this not-really-new media channel, Adam and Joe found their XFM radio show repackaged in this format.
Podcasting provided a freedom that suited Buxton’s style of presentation. There was more time and show frameworks were less stringent. The comedy had no limitations set on it. His guests were less obviously proscribed by radio’s time sensitive symbiosis with celebrity PR. His solo podcasting has in some respects come to typify the format, both interested and interesting – much imitated, seldom equalled. Adam Buxton has wit, his imitators have banter.
He has maintained a place as a curator of new music and accompanying video, as an actor and after “a career based on his insecurities” he has begun to explore those parts of himself in his written work.
He has nurtured the kind of career that seems blessed, effortless, even privileged, and the latter is a factor, but to dismiss it in this way is reductive. Better minds have foundered in such opportunity and the quantity and quality of the work he has produced is voluminous.
One can imagine Buxton as MC of any great party, gently coaxing guests to share their ideas and maintaining the energy without resorting to cheerleading…and like any good guest, he is, by all accounts, a nice guy. He’ll get you a drink. What would you like?
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