Riding the weight of his nationally recognized political impressions, the Bernie Sanders impressionist James Adomian, from the outrageous “Trump vs. Bernie” mock debates will be coming back to Madison for a handful of solo performances.
Since Adomian’s last Madison appearance with co-star Anthony Atamanuik playing Donald Trump, his comedy career has taken off.
A four-part “Trump vs. Bernie” special was featured on Fusion TV and received a 40-minute special on Comedy Central’s @Midnight.
Adomian has also been a voice actor on “Bojack Horseman,” has had a movie debut at Tribeca Film Festival, has appeared as numerous small roles on shows like The Eric Andre Show and has spent time writing his own prospective TV shows, among many other projects.
Adomian’s unique live performances always contain a healthy amount of impressions. Adomian prefers to imitate real people that the average news consumer would recognize, while also leaning away from typical impressions such as Robert DeNiro.
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“I do impressions of people interesting to me,” Adomian said. “Sometimes they can veer into the obscure — weird people I hear about where I’m like, ‘someone should be making fun of that guy,’ and I go ‘that person is me.'”
Adomian is also famous for his impressions of public figures such as Chris Matthews, Jesse Ventura, Gary Busey, Lewis Black and many more.
Frequently developing new impressions, Adomian said he often tries out his latest material at his comedy shows, much like his scheduled performances in Madison. He said he has recently been working on a handful of different political impressions, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Assistant to President Trump Sebastian Gorka and Info Wars host Alex Jones.
Adomian said his most popular impression lately is Sebastian Gorka. He said he plays [Gorka] as a “deranged James Bond villain,” which Adomian said is because of Gorka’s close position to the president and as a member of a “shadowy Hungarian right-winged organization.”
“What I started reading about him in the news was that he was like a hilarious James Bond-like personality. Then I heard his voice and I saw his interviews and I was like, ‘yes, this guy is a bond villain,'” he said.
Adomian said his impression of Gorka is based on “Moonraker” villain Hugo Drex.
Doing five shows between May 4-6, evidence points to Adomian performing some of his much developed new material in Madison.
While his comedy is largely political, Adomian’s mission isn’t to divide his audience.
“I do not really do an act that is meant for people to applaud or boo,” Adomian said. “I don’t really care if people agree with me or not, obviously the fun part of doing comedy is to make people laugh, so thats really what I do. If people don’t laugh then they’re bad people.”
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Not afraid to speak his mind, Adomian is determined to show the absurdity in everything. He uses his comedy as his own unique form of a political platform, but comedy reigns supreme.
“There’s always been a political strain to my comedy. There’ve always been things that I’ve felt like saying, but at the same time I’ve always loved being very silly,” Adomian said.
Adomian said he’s excited to take his perpetually-developing show to Madison, and will also be appearing on a few more projects, such as with former mock debate counter part Anthony Atamanuik on “The President Show.”
Adomian said it’s possible he will be returning as Bernie Sanders or perhaps unveiling a few of his latest characters.
Until then, the up-and-coming impressionist will be frequenting live shows and continues to appear on always-hilarious podcasts like Comedy Bang-Bang and Chapo Trap House.
