Profile: The Last Leg

By: A.C.

Last year during the Paralympics, Channel 4 started a live daily post-Olympics show called The Last Leg. Hosted by prosthetic leg wearing Australian Adam Hills, assisted by Alex Brooker, who also has a disability of his own, and non–disabled sidekick comedian Josh Widdicombe, the programme aimed to take the awkwardness out of questions that others were afraid to ask for fear of being insensitive.

Viewers loved it, and after the Olympics the show was re-commissioned and is now live on Friday nights and is taking no prisoners with the present Government on welfare topics.
The programme does have a lot swearing and ranting, so maybe put on your headphones before watching on Channel 4’s catch-up service.

Adam Hills has now been asked by Scope to appear in one of their excellent spoof videos asking people to donate clothing to their local Scope Charity Shop. Many of you will not be old enough to remember Cadbury’s ‘Man in Black’, who was a sort of rugged James Bond type who crept in ladies bedrooms and left his signature calling card and a box of Dairy Milk chocolates. This is the theme Scope chose for their latest campaign. The video and article by Hills can be found here.

Scope have also produced a series of videos entitled End the Awkward, which challenge how the disabled are seen, or expected to behave.

Here, in the Radio Times, Adam Hills explains the ethos of the show and why he nearly unbooked Piers Morgan, and his famous interview with Nick Clegg, which if you have not seen it has one very slick quip in it.

If you want to read more interviews on who Adam Hills has ‘roasted’, this Comedy Guide has links to various press clippings and videos.

Australian TV Channel ABC now broadcast The Last Leg, and Hills satirical rants at the present Government are actually reported there. The video on this page as Hills rants at Politicians, hits home as satire should, but be warned, it contains a theme some may find upsetting or offensive.

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