Whether those subjects still had heft in the face of the pandemic experience was a question he had to ask himself a year later. He decided they did. “For me, the pandemic is another example of people shouting at each other. It’s the conspiracy theorists and deniers, the people who have been shouting about how we want our civil liberties, I’m not going to wear a mask and this vaccine is going to put a 5G chip in you, whatever. For me, again, it’s kind of, ‘no, now is not the time to say yes to mariachi. There is a time for shouting and protest and all that sort of stuff and there is a time for pulling your head in’.” And pulling together, which is what he sees as comedy’s highest calling.

Facing an audience probably won’t be any weirder, truth to tell, than the succession of cancelled flights, sudden airport closures, and TV shows written and performed over Zoom that have been the meat and potatoes of Hills’ life over the past 12 months. When last year’s festival was cancelled, he came back to Australia anyway because his family was there. Then followed seven months of lockdown, during which he home-schooled his children (with his wife, singer Ali McGregor) and made a series of The Last Leg from his garage, rehearsing from 3am. He flew back to London, made another series, flew back to Australia for Christmas, flew to London again.

It wasn’t ideal, plus there were the Twitter attacks from people wanting to know how he could get back to Australia when they couldn’t. Money, of course; he could afford to pay the asking price. Plus it was legitimately for work. “I can see how it looks as if I’m just flitting in and out,” he says. “I kind of want to explain to people that look, just before COVID hit, we decided my wife and kids were going to move to Melbourne and I was going to stay in London and try and go back and forth.

“And unfortunately, this thing has meant I had to choose between either feeding my family or seeing them. I tried to do both as best I can.” I can’t imagine a moment when Hills isn’t doing his best. He managed to write two drafts of a children’s book in successive periods of isolation: not a moment wasted. There was even an episode of The Last Leg beamed from his quarantine hotel. “We thought it would kind of be a nice novelty.”

Doing comedy is a way of doing his best, albeit with the usual ulterior motive that drives showbiz. “I think all comedians are dreamers and we all think that what we do is going to make the world a better place,” he said over our breakfast. “I mean, we’re all egotists because of that. Or we’re that because we’re egotists. We wouldn’t do what we did if we didn’t think that what we were doing actually makes the world better. Which is a terrible thing to admit. But I think if you can unite a room in laughter, you’ve possibly one less division in the world.” He looks sheepish. “That sounds really wanky, but…”

Really, though? There are plenty of comedians who seem permanently furious. He tells me about a new underground of right-wing iconoclasts who enjoy making forbidden jokes to challenge the so-called cancel culture. Or what about someone from our own side like Stewart Lee, eviscerating Top Gear when everyone seemed to love it? Or Hills’ own rants? No, he says. The joke there is that it’s funny to see someone get very angry about something that doesn’t matter much. He could tear strips off a fat-shamer when we didn’t have Trump or Brexit.

“But with literal Nazis back in the world again, it’s almost like they’re too important to shout at.” It does help, he adds, that The Last Leg is about British politics. “If I went back to Australia, and was talking about Australian politics, I’d probably find it harder to be funny about it because I’m more invested in it. I’d be more wound up about things that are going on. Whereas here I can keep a bit of a distance from it.”

And he wants to make a common cause of laughter. “I’m certainly not there to divide a room. I think deep down comedians are desperate to make everyone love them.” Well, of course. You’re asking people to laugh at your jokes. “That’s on the surface. It’s clearly our reason for being. But then underneath that is ‘but I want to make the world a better place, I want to reach an understanding’.” And then at the very bottom: the need for love is also there as well. “Like a vanilla slice? “Or a shit sandwich, whichever way you want it.″⁣

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His disability is on the outside, he says – although to see him striding along the street, you would never guess he wore a prosthetic foot – but he maintains, only half in jest, that all comedians are compensating for something. “There’s definitely something wrong with you if you want people looking at you on stage and try and seek their approval.”

As if to prove it, he tells me about how much he loves playing rugby in a league for disabled players. The variety of disabilities can create some midfield moral quandaries. “It’s a genuine eye-opener,” he says, his brow knitting gently. “The moral quandary of playing rugby league against someone with cerebral palsy and thinking ‘well, he can outrun me, but I can push him over’. Which do I do?” Anyway, the season before lockdown, he was asked to step up as captain because the regular captain was injured.

“And I said: ‘But I’m a comedian! Comedians aren’t captains, we’re losers, we’re idiots!’ And he’s like ‘no, you’re a leader’. My wife even said: ‘But you’re like the captain of The Last Leg’. But I couldn’t get that into my head. In my head I was the loser. I didn’t win things and that’s why I’m a comedian. And I had to get through that and almost fake it until I became it. Oh yeah, right, I don’t have to lose everything! And then I learned how to be a captain and then we ended up winning the League.”

Of course he did. He pulled everyone together. He did his best! He laughs. “It’s nuts,” he admits. “But it’s the comedian’s mentality.”

Adam Hills’ Shoes Half Full is at the Athenaeum Theatre, April 6-18, comedyfestival.com.au