Making sense of Sam Campbell – TV’s funniest (and strangest) man

The Aussie comedian’s madcap new series is totally absurd and rib-crackingly hilarious. “No one knew what was going on,” he tells NME

L ying in bed at his remarkably pink London home, Sam Campbell is resplendent in a yellow t-shirt from the anarchic 1990s kids’ TV show Fun House , honouring its once-mullet-sporting host Pat Sharp.

Sharp cameos in the fifth episode of Campbell’s supremely silly new mockumentary series Make That Movie as a version of himself who’s a ‘barefoot-truther’ (and thus against shoes). During the episode, he voices an animated foot in a cartoon feature film meant to champion the cause and raise money for a couple trapped down a cave.

You wouldn’t expect anything less deliriously bonkers from Campbell, the Aussie absurdist. At 34, he has the comedy world at his (exposed) feet – thanks to breakout stints in Taskmaster and the second season of Prime Video ’s Last One Laughing UK , where he managed to out-leftfield even returning champion Bob Mortimer by dressing up as a vicar’s pet bird.

Campbell entered Last One Laughing UK (where the aim of the game is not to laugh or smile) as arguably the least well-known mainstream comedian, but left as its most beloved. Even the hardened performers on the show seemed wrong-footed by Queensland’s Dadaist don. In fact, so solemn was his demeanour that co-host Roisin Conaty remarked, “is he on a sedative?” while David Mitchell – who narrowly beat Campbell in the final – once observed of him: “You have a disconcerting presence. There’s something ghostly about you.”

“David needs to look in the mirror once in a while!” jokes Campbell today, via Zoom. “He’s a funny guy to talk to. You feel like you’re in Peep Show .”

A fan of “high-concept ideas” and “batshit premises”, Campbell has filtered his eccentric style into a five-part mockumentary sitcom for Make That Movie . He stars as, well, Sam Campbell. But this Campbell is a fictional director on a downward slide, now helming a shonky reality series (think ‘90s OGs Changing Rooms and Ground Force ) where members of the public write in with harebrained film ideas.

Clad in purple jumpsuits, Campbell’s quirky crew – Lara Ricote as his dogsbody assistant Jess, Aaron Chen as the bullied Sebastian whom they only tolerate because his moneybags family are bankrolling their endeavours and Helen Bauer as temperamental sound engineer Pat – set about bringing them to insane life. It’s rightly been hailed as “ the funniest show of the entire year .”