Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Sam Campbell: Wobservations. The Garage, Wed 13th March, 2024


I didn't know what to expect from this gig. Sam comes across as a funny oddball on TV, but I hadn't seen any of his stand-up. He has pedigree, though, as he won the Edinburgh Award for Best Show of the Fringe in 2022. He also sold out a solo performance of "Bulletproof Ten" at last year's Fringe at the Pleasance Grand despite promoting that the show only lasted ten minutes. 

The ticket for tonight's gig said the doors opened at 8 p.m., but the GICF website said 7 p.m., so I arrived early, at 6.30 p.m., not wanting to take the risk. There was no queue, so we went across the road to the pub. By the time we'd downed our drinks, there were about twenty people waiting. 

My name wasn't on the attendee list, but I had printed out the tickets, so we were waved on. Unusually for such an event, the tickets weren't scanned. Then we waited in the bar area for the main hall to open. The staff opened the curtains just before showtime and, as the show was a sellout, insisted we fill each row in turn with no gaps, starting at the front. We ended up sitting bang in the middle of the second row. Perfect!

My pre-show view
We were packed in like sardines (which Sam referenced early in the show). I wondered if the seats were getting smaller or if I was getting bigger (thinking the latter), but my mate, who is thinner than a stick that's had its stomach removed, assured me it was the seats.   

Sam arrived on stage wearing sunglasses, which flew off his face up onto the balcony. From there, the weirdness continued. Sam's comedy is difficult to put into words. It's absurd, it's wacky, it's prankish, but most of all, it's funny. He asked a guy in the front row if he had keys. Sam got him to throw them onto the stage for Sam to catch using his special catching glove. Then Sam pinged the keys to a guy wearing the same type of glove at the side of the stage. The guy catches them, receives an audience cheer, then bolts off, with Sam admitting, "I don't know that guy", then corrects himself, saying, "I do know that guy. I just don't trust him". The poor punter had to wait till the very last moment of the show to get his keys back, and even then, the return was elaborate (involving a plant tub, a box of rice crispies, four litres of milk and a giant spoon, the keys being tossed into the pot from the balcony).

An Image from The bizarre video he played during the interval
We had a broken egg dangled over our heads using an extendable pole, the yoke dangling longer and longer, threatening to drip onto us (it was a foot long before he whisked it away - pun intended). He showed us screen grabs of text exchanges between him and a school, which resulted in him going in disguise to a parents' evening pretending to be the parent of the kid for whom he'd been receiving detention notifications. There was audience participation in a bizarre game show where the participants picked a number that revealed an Australian ad for life insurance. His PowerPoint work was extraordinarily bizarre. With his standup material, you never knew what was coming next.   

Sam is a unique talent, unlike anything I've ever seen. Hail to the weirdness! 

Ticket price £18 plus fees.

Blurb:  
Basically, we keep him in a metal crate. Once everyone is settled and the house lights go down, we will let him loose onto the stage.
It is our understanding that his comedy moments will DAZZLE you. His prefrontal cortex is larger than you might expect.
When he’s done/empty we shove him back in the crate and you will be allowed to return to your home. How does all that sound?
As seen on Taskmaster.

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