Adam Buxton - BUG 58

I’ve been a fan of Adam Buxton’s work for quite some time now. I enjoyed the Adam & Joe Show (and particularly their BBC show Adam & Joe Go Tokyo) but I really became a massive fan during their 6Music show and, since then, have followed pretty much anything Adam’s done. His podcast is always good entertainment value and his BUG show on Sky Atlantic was criminally underlooked. The show itself was based upon on these live shows in which Adam curates a selection of interesting music videos along with some comedy interjections of his own.

I saw a BUG show at the Greenwich Comedy Festival last year; a version of the 10th anniversary show. It was probably slightly less representative of the usual show given that it was an anniversary and was geared more towards Adam’s comedy bits as it was part of a comedy festival. The show at the BFI last night (the first in a run of three that he’s doing this month) was my first attendance at a full BUG show.

The thing that shines through the most in this show is his genuine and abiding love of music and not just music that he’s familiar with but new, up-and-coming or less well known artists. The other thing that’s clear and that was reawakened in myself was an appreciation for the music video as an art form. As a teenager, I would spend many, many hours watching and re-watching music videos, to the point where I would recognise my favourite video directors and actively seek out their work (Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Anton Corbijn and Chris Cunningham were always high on the list*). 

Many of the videos last night brought back that joy in discovering a new piece of film. Highlights included Throwing Lines by Kelly Lee Owens, He’s Got His Mother’s Hips by John Grant, Dolly Said No To Elvis by Mark Nevin and Ottolenghi by Loyle Carner (which, as Adam pointed out, did have a definite Michel Gondry vibe to it). The themed segments presented a brief history of Talking Heads videos (I didn't realise Toni Basil was so heavily involved in their music and videos) and the whole thing was held together by Mr Buxton’s natural presenting presence, largely helped by his clear and genuine enthusiasm for the subject.

The only aspect that was lacking was Adam’s patented reading out of YouTube comments to accompany the video (which sounds very dry when you write it down like that but it genuinely very funny) but, as he explained, this was down to the current paucity of amusing comments and (despite an overheard complaint that he mentioned from a previous show) didn’t “detract from the whole experience”.

The remaining two shows this month are already sold out but if you see tickets listed in future and have a passing interest in music videos/short film, definitely get yourself tickets, it's absolutely worth it. In the meantime, you can find the entirety of his Sky Atlantic show on YouTube. Give it a look (and you’ll see what I mean about the comments).

* Often going on to be become feature directors, notably Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind; Be Kind, Rewind)