Craig Campbell: Cold Beans and Comedy (Java, June 1998)

At Pilgrims cafe in Queen Street (just next to the Classic Theatre) they don't fuck around. When you ask for beans-, that's what you get. And lots of em. No parsley garnish, no wafer thin slice of tomato-, and if you want bread, you've got to ask for it- Luckily, that's just the way Craig Campbell, visiting Canadian stand up and co host of Ed's Night Party likes it. He orders his beans, and we sit down outside in the freezing wind 'Nice day' he says, and he's not kidding: home is a cabin in the snowy wilds of Calgary. On arrival, his beans start to instantly congeal. Over the next 30 minutes of small talk those beans come close to freezing, saved only by the bean-sauce that surrounds each one, which forms an almost impregnable wind resistant jelly. Just as the beans are about to solidify into a single mass, Campbell deems them to be edible and devours the lot. 'This is how they do things in Canada', he tells me.

....Campbell isn't really a comedian, he's more a very entertaining hitchhiker. I caught his act at the Classic during the Laugh Fest, and although he had the place rocking the whole way through his 90 minute set, he didn't actually tell a single joke. Instead, he spent the entire time talking with the audience, asking them where they were from, what they did for a living, and more personal stuff, like circumcision details, and farmyard sexual experiences. Actually, it was a circumcisions comment that bought Campbell a little more than he bargained for at an earlier gig at the Mandalay: Some guy sitting up the front behind a table of beer battles leapt up on stage to show the crowd what his dick looked like. Campbell, naturally enough, followed suit, and an indepth comparison of cut vs uncut cocks ensued. "New Zealanders seem to relate well to me" says Campbell. "Maybe ifs the NZ/Canada thing: we both have a little brother syndrome going on. With us it's the US. With you guys its Australia. I dunno. Whatever..."

His gig on Ed's Night Party is similar to what he does on stage. Basically unscripted, his job is to be the human contact point between the guests and Ed, show creator Steve Kerzner's sock puppet. "The sock was Steve's idea. He was working at a tiny cable channel in Canada, and there was this incredibly obnoxious, grumpy guy who was always talking about his incredible sexual prowess. Ed came from him" The show is aggressively non pc, which causes a 'WHAT did he say?' love/hate reaction from the critics. Even the old left wingers at the Listener were taken aback: "The production values of a home-made pornflick, hosted by a crabby, abusive, cigar smoking, misogynistic sock" was their call. 'We have no idea if Ed is just a rudimentary phallic gimmick or a genuinely funny fellow. See and decide".

Before Ed, Campbell was making a living as a stand up, playing gigs all over Canada as well as excursions to the US. He had opened for Jim Carrey, done a bit of tv work, basically worked his ass off, and he was flat broke. "I'd been doing comedy for about 9 years and I still owed money to my mum for fuck's sake. Just before Ed's Night Party came along, I was looking at heading off into the hills to work as a helicopter lumberjack". Then he got the audition, and the rest is history. "A lot of people couldn't handle the idea of playing second fiddle to a sock. Actually, I think that's how I got the job: I was more into making the show work and making the sock work than using it as a vehicle for myself. I certainly didn't get the job because I'm qualified for it: I hardly even watch TV, and pretty much know nothing about popular culture. I don't really know why they hired me".

Imposter syndrome notwithstanding, Campbell is on his way to becoming a star. Not that you'd notice though: in a style reminiscent of human resources policy at TVNZ, his bosses at Toronto cable channel City TV haven't even given him a dressing room. "I've gotta get changed in the public shitter!" he exclaims "I'm going on to talk with David Hasselholf, and I have to get myself together in a public shitter! Their attitude's kinda interesting. Sometimes the security guards won't let our studio audience in the building! I think its because we get good ratings with no resources, talking about stuff that normal people are interested in." Ratings-wise, Ed is a success, despite the harsh treatment his bass gives the show. As well as Canada and New Zealand, the show goes to Australia and the UK, and the next and biggest step, the US market, is just around the corner. "Shows like Southpark and the Simpsons are paving the way for fresh shows like Ed. The US network TV market is incredibly conservative. If real people were saying the stuff the Southpark characters were saying, the show wouldn't get on the air. But there's definitely an audience that's sick of the same old stuff. In the talk show format, you've got Letterman and Leno for example, which are both fine, but they're totally corporate shows. They don't go near the sort of material we cover every night. On Ed's Night Party, we basically don't give a fuck. I guess that's what people like about it. The guests love it. Hasselholf had a ball, Mark Hamill took us into his living room. They really dig it".

The future for Campbell is starting to shape up, like his plate of beans, into something pretty big. With the US television market in their sights, the Ed's Night Party team is holding on for the big ride. Whatever happens, it looks like we'll be seeing Campbell again: he's making plans for a return visits to NZ in early '99. "I'm definitely coming back. This place rocks. The environment is incredible, there's so much freedom, and your cops don't even carry guns. Its great".

Stephen

Ed's Night Party comes back to TV4 on Fridays at 10.30pm. Craig's the one without the cigar.