Comedy Festival 2018: Sam Campbell raises the bar in The Trough ★★★★½

THERE’S no time to scoff just hop in The Trough and get this lunatic a Barry Award Nomination.

Sam Campbell in The Trough.

A LEARNED friend of mine summed this show up: “You forgive the 15 per cent of flat spots for the 85 per cent of soaring.” And boy oh girl, can Sam Campbell fly.

The antithesis of Hughesy-type self-serve checkout humour, Campbell starts the show (“Centrelink Presents”) with spliced Gala spots of St Kilda’s most successful everyman comedian, David William Hughes, ripping out gags with that voice.

Sam Campbell in The Trough.

Campbell has us in post-ironic stitches before entering the stage dressed as some kind of worm with frankfurt sausage fingers and a mischievous, I-have-you-now grin smeared on his face.

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For the uninitiated, Sydney fruitcake Campbell is a comic genius disguised as an idiot savant. A puerile boy-man who is actually undermining the patriarchy with more panache than any earnest, dick-swinging “proper” stand-up. There’s madness in his method.

“That should win the Archibald Prize … for penning such a visceral picture” he riffs about his own work. It feels loosey goosey and off-the-cuff like vintage Ross Noble. Repeated viewings of Campbell joints like the magnificent Zanzoop (winner of Director’s Choice Award in 2016) reveal it’s all precision placement.

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He brings a multimedia, song-heavy hour of loony LOLs on Anticol, “cookin’ the books”, dying young and theories on David Bowie and Mick Jagger (including a comparison with successful kitschy Australian authors).

Audience member and fabulous human, Tom Ballard, is singled out by Cambo, lifting the show to further meta-comedy heights. “When will I find something Tom Ballard is gonna like?” he asks in his manic, flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants way.

You’ve found it, Sam.

Sam Campbell, The Trough

Melbourne Town Hall, until April 22.

comedyfestival.com.au