“My mind is a prison full of crazy ideas. And I think there’s going to be a jailbreak!” That’s Sam Campbell: freewheeling concepts for comedy set loose at you from all angles, by an act who’s sharply aware of the ridiculousness of that undertaking. It’s after midnight when he traps his audience in this subterranean space, and nocturnal giddiness may play a role in what follows, as Campbell splices manic standup, unexpected cameos and dotty visual gags on-screen. None of it has anything to do with anything: it’s the incongruity, taken to uncommon lengths, that’s funny.
And it is here, more so than on previous occasions I’ve seen the Australian’s work. Like those great oddball comics Hans Teeuwen and Sam Simmons, there’s always been an edge of instability to what Campbell does. His boyish face could burst out crying any minute, or grow the devil’s horns. But there’s a recalibration this year fractionally more towards warmth, and the show is delivered with increased verve and attack.
All of which helps offset the incidental nature of proceedings, as the routine about the font on the Weetabix packet follows the appearance onstage of a hypnotist from outer space. Sometimes, Campbell’s imagination produces wonderfully adhesive images, such as the offspring of Joe Rogan and his bar stool, or the girlfriend who refuses to remove her “Deliveroo cube”. Sometimes, the wacky atmosphere conceals fairly conventional jokes, like the one about the consequences for Paddington Bear’s name had he been found elsewhere.
Appalled though he may be to hear it, there is now and then a core of robust observational comedy beneath Campbell’s loopiness. A routine about his conversationally promiscuous barber (“you’re not a bishop, you’re a rook”) is a case in point. But even these are just shards, nested in seemingly arbitrary order with slides about Bratz dolls and a (very funny) rant against the popularity of underdogs. Even acknowledging that the meaninglessness is the point, I’d love to see Campbell find a way (structurally, narratively, whatever) to make this stuff cohere. Failing that, he’s certainly got his wee-small-hours randomness operating at a fine comic pitch here.
Sam Campbell is at the Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh until 28 August
