Sam Campbell, the Australian comedian known for his subversive and absurdist style, has been given the reins of his own very strange sitcom on Channel 4. Titled Make That Movie, the show is a deeply odd series that defies easy description. It presents a show-within-a-show format where Campbell plays an alternative version of himself: a pompous director whose well of inspiration has run dry. He invites the public to share their invariably bonkers ideas for movies, which he and his dysfunctional crew then develop into real feature films. This all occurs within the framework of a shonky reality programme, with each episode concluding with the film's premiere. Think Changing Rooms, but instead of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Handy Andy renovating somebody's living room, it is Campbell and co bringing to life a man called Mick's fantasy about a couple who cannot be snakes at the same time, yet one of them is always a snake.
The Creative Freedom Behind the Show
In essence, the real Campbell has been given carte blanche to turn his own invariably bonkers ideas into reality. He claims the production company behind the show were very hands-off, partly because they were so busy working on an animated Ricky Gervais series about cats. This allowed Campbell and his team to be left to their own devices. It also helped that Channel 4's head of comedy, Charlie Perkins, a longtime champion and collaborator of Campbell's, was very trusting. Campbell admits he does not know if she really got the concept when they were first talking about it, but after they made it, he thinks she understood it a tiny bit more.
Even his co-stars did not fully get it. Comedian Lara Ricote, who plays Campbell's people-pleasing assistant Jess, first read the script with slight bemusement. Yet she too had faith. As a huge fan turned close friend of its creator, Ricote felt she did not need to understand Make That Movie. She trusts with her heart that it is going to be funny.
Campbell's Rise to Fame
Many comedy fans will feel that it is high time Campbell got his own television show. Since moving to the UK from his native Australia in the early 2020s, the 34-year-old has established himself as the British comedy circuit's most thrillingly irreverent voice. His standup, delivered in a style that swings between hammy overacting and childish belligerence, forces observational comedy through an absurdist filter. His contrarian takes cover everything from hand sanitiser and dragonflies to Ferrero Rocher and Bratz dolls. In 2022, this shtick won him the Edinburgh comedy award. His appetite for prank-adjacent subversion meant he returned the next year for an outrageously arrogant victory lap, a single 10-minute performance titled Bulletproof Ten.
A triumphant stint on Taskmaster followed, and soon Campbell was plying his trade as the resident oddball on a slew of panel shows: Would I Lie to You?, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and QI. An appearance on QI involved him swapping his usual casual attire for a tweed suit and severe side parting, and asking host Sandi Toksvig if it would technically be possible for him to ride on the back of a whale's sperm. Then came his most high-profile gig to date: this year's series of Last One Laughing UK. Battling the likes of Alan Carr, David Mitchell, and Bob Mortimer, he was a decidedly leftfield presence. He did unconventional duck impressions, claimed to have dined next to mole people during Eat Out to Help Out, and played a vicar's pet bird in what must have been the show's most bizarre set-piece ever. It also proved Campbell's deadpan manner was more than a mask; it quickly became clear that there was zero chance of anyone getting him to crack, which necessitated an eventual rule change by the producers. Campbell ultimately lost to David Mitchell by virtue of having made marginally fewer of the other contestants crack up.
Behind the Persona
In real life, Campbell is still relatively poker-faced, although by no means the disconcertingly weird dude his persona implies. Today he is video calling from his parents' house in Tasmania, where he is taking a break after a stint filming back-to-back episodes of an Australian panel show. He admits to being zonked and is concerned about coming across as a dullard as a result. Yet while he is keen to share reading recommendations, he is far from an open book himself. When asked what made him swap Australia for the UK, he says he cannot quite remember why he moved to England or how it happened. Although he will admit to having been a longtime fan of British comedy, citing Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh as formative influences.
And do not bother looking for clues in the Campbell he plays in Make That Movie either. The decision to give the character his own name was foisted upon him by producers, he says. The show's director, Joe Pelling, confirms that Campbell wanted to call himself Coin at one point. Pelling describes the protagonist as maybe a version of Sam if he was quite a lot thicker and way more arrogant. What the pair do have in common is a tendency to go with their gut. For fake Campbell, that means dashed-off scripts and underbaked conceits; for the real one, it means not second guessing himself or deconstructing his process in interviews. Pelling says Sam does not really seem like someone who is prone to super analysing his stuff too much; he is just led instinctively by what is funny.
The Cast and Crew
Campbell cast his on-screen crew largely from his friendship circle. Alongside the sweet, energetic Jess, who was partly based on Ricote herself, we have fellow Australian comic Aaron Chen as the nerdy yet highly incompetent dogsbody Sebastian, whose presence is tolerated due to the fact his parents are funding the entire enterprise. Exuberant standup Helen Bauer plays against type as grumpy sound engineer Pat, while 86-year-old actor David Hargreaves, who has been working steadily in British TV since the 1960s, completes the gang as cinematographer Winnie. Dressed in matching purple jumpsuits, the team's aesthetic is part-Ghostbusters, part-Scooby-Doo. Pelling, who is best known for co-creating the cult animated comedy-horror web series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, wanted to cultivate a real-life cartoon feel so that the show does not feel bleak and strange.
As well as the fictional film crew, Make That Movie stars a rotating cast of fictional members of the public, many of whom are roped into acting in the fictional films as a cost-saving exercise by Campbell. These are played by the cream of the British alternative comedy scene: Amy Gledhill, Lenny Rush, Mark Silcox, John Kearns, Freddie Meredith, and many more. Meanwhile, the movies themselves, which are mind-bendingly terrible but not in a low-rent way, span multiple styles: from sentimental British drama to sci-fi to a childlike animation about feet. Make That Movie is essentially an anthology show. 2000s DIY programmes may have served as a template, but so did Michael Palin's 1970s series Ripping Yarns.
Inspirations and Influences
Another major inspiration was catastrophic film shoots. Both Pelling and Campbell mention a documentary called Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr Moreau, about the chaotic set of the 1996 Val Kilmer movie. The comedy inherent in taking film-making too seriously, especially when disaster strikes, is at the core of Make That Movie, says Pelling. Campbell recalls putting on a play in Australia in his youth about chess player Garry Kasparov, in which a friend played supercomputer Deep Blue. They painted him blue and took it so seriously. Approaching obviously dumb ideas humourlessly is something Campbell finds quite funny.
Much like Campbell's standup, which both subverts and cleaves to the tropes of observational comedy, underneath Make That Movie is solid comedic logic. Pelling says Sam is pretty good at knowing that sometimes you need some character development or a structure that engages the audience in a more straightforward way, so it is not just one mad thing after another. There are an awful lot of mad things, though. In one episode, we meet Sebastian's AI companion Super-Breast, a digital rendering of a hairless naked woman burdened with one giant boob. The image is now seared on my retinas, but Campbell insists he is not in the business of trying to disturb people. He says he does not want anyone to get properly shaken up, but it is OK if people kind of grimace at Super-Breast. He considers the alternative and hopes she does not get a fanbase.
Rejected Ideas and Audience Expectations
Were any of Campbell's movie ideas rejected for being too weird? He mentions one that involved a spaceship with a thousand babies on it, stopping at planets where 100 babies would get out while the other babies were being educated by a computer. The ones deposited on the final planet would rule the universe because they had the most education. It did not make a lick of sense. Then there was another about a guy who, any time someone touched him physically, would go back to being a baby with the knowledge he had accumulated, so he kept starting his life again. A lot of baby material, then? Campbell says none of that really remained because people said it is really hard to film with babies and called him a crackpot.
Make That Movie is an acquired taste, and that is exactly the point. For those with a certain sensibility, this kind of iconoclastically eccentric TV is a much-needed throwback to a time when weird-for-weird's-sake comedy was all over our screens. Like an old-school indie icon, Campbell's appeal lies in his rejection of anodyne and conventionally crowd-pleasing comedy, says Ricote. She explains that it is so nice when you feel like your taste is good, when you feel good about liking what you like, and that happens to her with Sam. She is glad to be one of those people who can laugh at something like this.
And what kind of reaction is Campbell anticipating from his latest creation? He would like people to find it interesting, although he seems to have very low expectations for audience engagement. He thinks people mainly watch things on their phone while they are being attacked now. The line makes me laugh anyway, as many have already observed: you do not need to understand Sam Campbell to appreciate him.
Make That Movie starts in the UK on Channel 4, 28 May, 10pm; and in Australia, it is on HBO Max from 29 May.
