Brad Williams is headed back to Arkansas this weekend, bringing his stand-up to the Robinson Center in Little Rock with a set built on self-mockery, quick crowd work and a deep affection for Waffle House. He said he always has a good time in the state, and this trip gives him another chance to do what he says he loves most: perform, then head out for food after the show.
“I’m obsessed with Waffle Houses,” Williams said, adding that he loves going there after performing because it is part of where he gets his material. He said the chain is one of the things he misses most about living in Los Angeles, where there are no Waffle Houses, and he called that absence “one of the great travesties going on in our country.”
The comic’s act has been shaped by a career that began unexpectedly, when he was in a crowd and a performer doing dwarf jokes called him on stage. Williams said he answered questions honestly, without trying to force a punch line, and the crowd laughed anyway. That moment showed him that comedy could feel “amazing,” and it helped define the style he still uses now: personal, self-directed and built around the life he has actually lived.
One of the biggest laughs early on came when he mentioned that he worked at Disneyland. He said the line landed so well that it stuck with him, along with the larger lesson that his material works best when he is the first target. “I kind of make fun of everybody because I make fun of myself, but then everybody else,” he said, describing a style that also leaves politics out of the act. “One thing you will not expect is, and you won’t get is, is jokes about politics,” he said. “I do not. I am not smart enough.”
That approach has helped Williams turn the stage into a kind of fundraiser as well. He said he raised half a million dollars for anti-bullying charities in Australia and the United States and for First Nations people after an effort that began when he tried to send a bullied child in Australia, Caden Bales, to Disneyland. The family declined the trip, but the campaign eventually expanded into a larger fundraising effort that Williams said did “a good thing.”
For the Little Rock audience, he said the bargain is simple: they should expect an entertaining night and leave feeling the money was worth it. “No, if you spend money on my ticket and pay for parking and babysitter and pay for gas, my God, I’m gonna give you an entertaining night,” he said. “I will have you walking away from that theater going, ‘I laughed, I cried. I thought, mostly laughed and it was money well spent.’” That is the promise Williams is bringing to Arkansas this weekend, along with a style of comedy that starts with him and ends, he hopes, with a full house and a Waffle House stop afterward.
