Inspired lunacy or meaningless drivel? In nonsense comedy, they’re separated by a thin line. With Sam Campbell’s show The Trough, we’re in the realm of Harry Hill or Sam Simmons, where non sequitur follows prop gag follows wildly arbitrary behaviour, all in aggressive defiance of good sense. For me, this falls short of the best absurdism: there’s no subtext, nor implication that his “complete case of the wackadoos” is a displacement activity for anything else. Neither does Campbell – like Hans Teeuwen, say – bring quite the level of skill and commitment that makes complete meaninglessness fly.
All that said, The Trough – which after Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette in 2017 won the Barry award at the Melbourne comedy festival – is a reliably amusing way to spend midnight hour on the fringe. From its opening video, using Kevin Spacey’s face to express Campbell’s dismay at observational comedy, it cocks a manic snook at convention. Our host’s neurotic energy, frequent bolts off stage to collect daft costumes and props, and unexpected interruptions from the crowd generate considerable instability as Campbell compares throat lozenges to gemstones and compels us to bow down before pictures of monkeys. So too does the animated sequence when he blows the brains out of his enemies (one of them, alas, is me).
It doesn’t sustain. The latter stages pall (an “act-out” starring Campbell’s two dads; a best man speech/screech about his stolen knives). But the best punchlines – many delivered on-screen – are very good indeed, like the poster for his imagined show with Gadsby, or the video of his improbable Oscars cameo. Campbell’s irreverence and his popcorning imagination are exciting. But he doesn’t quite channel them into a coherent 60-minute show.
- At the Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
- Read all our Edinburgh festival reviews.
