Tue 3 May
St David’s Hall, Cardiff
Craig Campbell enters the stage from the back of the room; announcing his presence with a friendly hello, a wave and a lumbering walk through the centre of the crowd towards the stage. Dressed in cargo shorts, t shirt and hiking boots along with his unruly beard and long hair he does look quite a lot like a young, Canadian Billy Connolly, which is perhaps largely where critics derive their comparisons of Craig and Billy. Just like any musician with an acoustic guitar is compared to Dylan, any comedian with a passing resemblance to Billy Connolly will have him listed as an influence, particularly if like Craig you also tell a good story.
In the first half, Craig makes excellent work of a difficult room for a comedy gig. The separated portions of seating surrounding the very wide stage in St. David Hall’s L3 Lounge doesn’t lend itself particularly well to stand up comedy. The first half of the show saw Craig dealing with this by engaging with the audience in a more convincing manner than the usual “so where are you from?” trope of the stand up comedian. Hailing originally from Canada, Craig is well placed to poke fun of cultural variance as a self-identified “salty-dick” (one foot on either side of the Atlantic with your member dangling in the sea). It’s in this way that Craig blends his audience interactions with his act seamlessly, getting the crowd on side early on.
In the second half Craig hit the ground running showing off his ability to spin the long yarn of a story, the real strength of his performance. He recalls incidents from his youth like surviving a riot whilst high on LSD, and finding himself in the privileged position of being in the backseat of a car with a girl on top of him who, although gorgeous, unfortunately couldn’t keep her alcohol down. There’s an abundance of stories from his time in Scotland, politely declining fights with locals and a painfully identifiable story of a late-night misunderstanding in a pasty shop.
Craig uses his position to lightly rib at global cultural differences, but what comes across is his fondness for the knotty affectations he observes on his travels. This not only results in him coming across as very likable on stage, it’s also hilariously funny and safe bet for a few hours of entertainment on a Tuesday night.
words MARCUS HUGHES
