Sam Campbell "Kid Giblet", King's Theatre, Glasgow. Saturday 26th September, 2026

The one thing you can expect from a Sam Campbell show is for it to be unpredictable. He sets the tone with his pre-show music, playing an album by Parchís, a shrill 80s children's musical group from Spain, who sound like the lovechildren of The Banana Splits and Pinky and Perky. 

Parchís

The stage is busy, with a bobbing toy duck on a pedestal, dunking its beak into a glass of water, the activity livestreaming on the big screen at the back of the stage. A substantial wooden desk holds a monitor and a laptop. Beside that is a display stand of plastic sunglasses. Then there's the table bearing the sign "Wet Wipes", upon which is a row of ten open bottles of wet wipes. Finally, on the right is a bizarre tri-legged artwork containing a badly hand-drawn portrait of Sam. Comical slides, particular to the King's, intermittently interrupt the duck live feed to keep us amused while we wait for the show to begin. 

A slide pops up asking us to select our opening act, with the link taking us to a poll with options like Slash, Jackie Chan, and The Old Lady. Tonight, we got Friendy, a toy puppet, whose face was filtered onto Sam's on the screen to provide its expressions. Fortunately, the act didn't last long once the joke wore thin.  

Aussie comic Jordan Sharp played Sam's assistant, channelling his inner Joe Wilkinson by wearing a suit and growing a messy full beard. His tasks included starting the video feeds and occasionally filming proceedings, such as when Sam went into the audience to kiss some bald heads. 

In the first act, a member of staff came on to inform Sam that a fire alarm was about to go off. Cue some messing around with the alarm sounds. I thought I recognised the woman as comedian Kate Dolan, recent winner of the Comedians' Award at the Edinburgh Fringe (I'll never forgive her for targeting me at the BBC New Comedy Awards during their Barrowland heat).  

I was proved correct in the second half, which, for reasons I won't spoil, she got to perform for the audience, at least until Sam reappeared in one of the boxes upstairs. I thought this was a clever way to incorporate the support act's slot into the show.

Kate Dolan

In between all this, Sam throws out zingers, interacts with the video screen and the audience, and shows us videos he's made. He delivers everything in his manic style. I struggle to make out everything he says, partly because he doesn't always speak clearly and because the sound in the room isn't great (again), but what I do comprehend is funny as fuck. 

One typical moment at the start had Sam arrive on stage wearing no trousers. Realising his gaffe, he pulls out a wet wipe from every bottle, venting his frustration as he throws each one away. Assistant Jordan then produces an extra-large wet wipe bottle, and Sam pulls out what turns out to be a pair of trousers. The glass of water the duck had been dunking its beak into turned out to be rubber, as we discover when Sam tries to lift it and stretches it out. He had loads of these sight gags.  

My wife enjoyed the show but confessed she wouldn't bother seeing him again. I, on the other hand, delighted in his unpredictability. The only section that disappointed me was the finale. I'd seen him do the phone-number bit and the firing gloves into the audience before (this time he used inflated washing-up gloves rather than water-filled surgical gloves). His long, meandering tale at the end had a weak payoff, more an exercise in making the journey than reaching the destination.

Ticket price:£32.69 x2 + Transaction fee £3.95 = £69.33 from ATG Tickets 

Live at Christmas: Dylan Moran, Tim Key, Sam Campbell, Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, Amy Gledhill, O2 Academy, Glasgow. Sunday 14th December, 2025

This was a quality comedy line-up. Five acts at the top of their game, according to recent reviews. It was a no-brainer that I would want to be there.

We had seats, so there was no need to be there for the doors opening. I managed to remember the way to Bob's secret parking spot near the Academy (well, nearly, but that's the great thing about a grid-based city - a few extra corners and you get to where you need to be). 

The Academy queue was still long when we arrived. I suspected I'd spotted an old pal walking by, and I confirmed my suspicion when his wife followed. We hadn't seen Quiz and Gail for a couple of decades, but they hadn't changed. Inside the venue, I approached them and asked them to step aside once they'd cleared security. It took them a moment to twig who we were. No one recognises me these days. After a quick catch-up, we parted ways, and we made our way to our seats.

Rather good ones, central and near the front, but not so close as to get picked on. 

Amy Gledhill was our host for the evening. The Hull comic was in the festive spirit, wearing a Santa costume over her voluptuous frame. She was pleasing, warm and affable, mixing crowdwork with her material. She asked the engineer sitting in the front row to start off the applause as we welcomed our first comedian, Sam Campbell.

Wow! Sam was off his rocker, like an effervescent tablet dropped into a can of Red Bull then sprayed at the audience (don't give him ideas). From the moment he arrived on stage, wacky doesn't do justice to how funny he was. The climax involved six members of the audience, whose mobile phone numbers added up to more than sixty-two, joining him on stage to throw latex-glove balloons filled with tap water into the crowd, even bringing out a massive catapult to assist with distance. We got caught in the splash zone.

Luckily, his section was followed by an interval to allow us to dry off and for the staff to mop the stage.

After that, we were treated to Christopher Macathur-Boyd and his comedy stylings, then Tim Key's comedy poetry. Christopher's stand-up was consistently funny with well-crafted material. He's honed some material I'd heard him perform previously, boiling it down to killer line after killer line. He was excellent. Tim Key, dressed in a Christmas jumper, which he had to use to smother a lager geyser from his newly opened can, played up how much he was in control, frequently telling Duncan, the sound engineer, to skip or stop music tracks, then start them again at a whim. He also asked the scientist in the front row to hold his can, toying with him, leaving it out of reach. Then he'd ask for it back so often that the audience member eventually threw it at him. 

The second interval provided another opportunity for the staff to mop the sticky stage. The lady sitting beside me enquired if I knew when the event finished. I told her the official time was eleven. She seemed concerned about this. The backstage crew brought out a keyboard and a mini electric bass guitar for the next act. We knew that David O'Doherty had been replaced by Sam Campbell, so why did the next act need musical instruments? Was David going to be a surprise extra? If that was the case, why didn't Amy build it up?

The answer was No. Dylan Moran, our headliner, has entered the freestyle jazz phase of his career, accompanying himself as he riffs his material. To be fair, his style has always suited this approach. But when I say jazz, I'm stretching the term. It may not meet the qualifying threshold. He was funny, though. He got annoyed at a girl in the third row who kept taking photos, pointing out that he didn't come to her workplace to distract her with a camera. She loved the attention. 

Then it was all over by 10.20 pm. It took so long to shuffle out, I joked to the woman I'd spoken to that the 11 pm finish included the exit time.

At the interval, I'd overheard a conversation between the group in the row behind us where one of them said, "By the way, the answer is XL." But what was the question? I was dying to know. Was it the size of his whatever? Roman numerals for forty? A Microsort program for creating spreadsheets? I never did find out, so now you don't know either. 

Another person directly behind me had a phlegmy cough, the kind you want to slap them on the back to encourage them to bring it up and swallow. Or just strike them for coming to a comedy gig carrying a contagion. They did their best to suppress it, but every time I heard it, I held my breath. Let those around them breathe it in, acting as my personal air filter.

On the way home, as I drove along the roadwork section of the M8 at the requested average speed (40 mph), five police Range Rovers flew past in succession, followed by an ambulance (in case they crashed). No idea why? Maybe they were in a race to reach the chippie before it closed. Perhaps late VAR calls had disqualified St Mirren's three goals, and they were on their way to Paisley to recover the Scottish League Cup. Or maybe Sam Campbell had stolen the front car, and the others were giving chase. We'll never know (unless he's filmed it for his next tour).

Ticket Price: £27.00 x2 + £3.40 Service Charge x2 + £1.75 Facility Charge x2 + Handling Fee £2.85 = £67.15 from Ticketmaster

 

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.