Chuckling Under Pressure

We join Canadian comic Craig Campbell in his adopted home of Devon, where he has some notable neighbours. “We’re a stone’s throw from Joss Stone’s house,” he reveals. “It’s a very artistic area in little subtle ways. Musicians of course are a component of that, but there’s a lot of pottery, as well as artists, painters and arts and crafts people.”

Campbell himself first relocated to London from Canada several years ago in order to take advantage of the city’s vibrant comedy scene, and then moved to Devon after meeting his partner at Glastonbury. His stand-up career has really taken off in the past few years, thanks to appearances on Russell Howard’s Good News and the enormously influential Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Road Show.
In contrast to his stand-up persona – which is that of a bloke-ish, in-your-face Canadian ready to seize on the comic differences between nationalities – Campbell is soft-spoken in person. Nonetheless, his aggressively hyper stage act has found a welcome audience amongst stand-up fans internationally.
“In little ways, I suppose things have been kicking off in recent years,” considers Campbell. “You rarely sit and reflect and try to quantify things like that. Especially for someone like me, who started out in 1989, you don’t really look at the goal posts along the way to try and figure out how you’re doing. I’m certainly doing different shows now, and they’re under my own steam, so that’s kind of nice. There’s adjustments along the way of course, because when you’re doing ensemble shows, they’re with your mates, and that’s pretty exciting when you’re in foreign locales and so on.
“But right now, doing my own shows, I’ve got the motorbike all packed up for the trip to Ireland, and before that, I’m in Port William, then it’s another three shows up in the Highlands, and over to Aberdeen, the Shetlands and on again. These are quite, not arduous, but a lot more effort than you would put into a weekend for example. And in that way, it actually reminds me of doing stand-up in Canada, when I would go on the road for six to eight weeks at a time, and get back to my house and feel like it was just another hotel room.”
Campbell readily acknowledges that his lifestyle nowadays is a good deal more comfortable than his early days as a struggling stand-up in Canada, and attributes a great deal of his success to his ability to marry comedy with his other interests, particularly snowboarding. Comedy gigs have become increasingly popular in ski and snowboarding resorts, and indeed Ireland’s own Andrew Maxwell has been organising his own comedy festival in one Austrian skiing resort for several years, and Campbell has been one of its most enthusiastic participants.
“I’ve been at that every year with my snowboard, like a dirty shirt, as they say,” he chuckles. “I’m like, ‘How can I help?!’ That’s what’s exciting about it; you’re hanging with your mates, snowboarding all day and doing shows here and there. Coming up, we’ve also got the first Scottish Snow Sports Festival at the end of February, which hopefully will become an annual event. That’s myself, Andrew and Ed Byrne doing a three-hander for three nights in a row over the weekend, and that’s amazing as well, particularly on the back of Andrew being nominated for best show in Edinburgh.”
Speaking of shows in off-the-beaten track locations, a few years back Campbell did a number of gigs in Kazakhstan along with UK comic Nick Wilty, a process which involved his performances being translated to the audience a line-by-line basis.
“Nick Wilty, being a very experienced and well-travelled international comedian, had done really well – as I had – with the same promoters in remote areas of China and Vietnam,” explains Craig. “In a lot ways, those kind of trips come your way if you prove you’re not going to puke on the food, and if you don’t mind a bus ride! Your comedy is part of it, but your steel stomach and your unflappability would be major components, and whether or not you flinch when you’re doing an hour-long internal flight with an airline called Skat.
“Which I would I say was the most exciting aspect of the whole thing – just the lack of safety talk, the lack of safety equipment, the attitude of the staff and so on. It’s just a horror show across the board!”
As well as his high-profile TV appearances, another factor which brought Campbell to the attentions of a wider audience recently was a lengthy stint supporting Frankie Boyle.
“That was a unique and incredible experience,” he enthuses. “I’ve opened for other famous people, but I don’t think I’ve opened for any famous people who’ve sold out a 120-date tour in half a week. The energy of the audience was such that they were titillated before I even took to the stage. I’ve many times been on stage at a gig like that with a half-full audience, where people are perhaps feeling a bit reticent, and thinking they’ve made a bit of mistake getting there early.
“But with Frankie’s audience, they were just so excited and up for it, that they were happy to get into my performance, and so there was always an enjoyable atmosphere for my slots.”
Some 20 years ago, Campbell had another notable support slot when he played a Vancouver gig with Jim Carrey, then on the cusp of mega-stardom.
“It was New Year’s Eve ’91, and it was the same year Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was released,” he recalls. “He was massive on In Living Colour, so people in the know were aware that he was not only unique, but was about to go stratospheric. It didn’t have the superstardom angle to it quite yet, and I don’t know if that would have changed how approachable he was, because one of the warmest memories I take from that experience is how approachable he was. Then to ring in the new year, he asked me to come onstage and have a sword fight with him!
“He asked me to come on with a sword, and he used the mic stand. We worked it out with a quick rehearsal, and it ended with me victorious, as it were. And when he went to the ground and died, he threw out pocketfuls of sugarcubes, to represent the heroin that he told the audience he was no longer doing, as part of his new year’s resolution. It was amazing!”