A blend of improv and sketch comedy, Sam & ___ is brilliantly unpredictable in the best way possible. A massive thank you to Sam Walls for inviting me to Sam & ___ at the Museum of Comedy on 10 July 2026.
Conceptually, the show follows a double act, Sam and Gaz, as they travel up and down the country performing. However, Gaz is stuck in traffic and leaves Sam to hold the fort alone, placing absolute faith in a failing trust test where the audience already knows what’s going to happen next. What ensues is a fast-paced mix of sharp sketches and slick transitions that pull the room straight into the story. As soon as the show starts, it becomes a collective experience – not only helping Sam get through the performance but allowing the crowd to feel fully immersed in it too.
Sam & ___ is an hour of slick gags and clever storytelling that makes for a thoroughly enjoyable show. Running throughout is one question: how far away is Gaz? And the answer? Always 10 minutes. As this continues, Sam becomes increasingly frazzled, and the audience watches him slowly lose composure while still trying to hold everything together, his visible spiralling becoming another layer of the comedy. As it progresses, Sam becomes a man on the edge, teetering on what feels like the start of a breakdown. The storytelling draws the audience in, and you begin to root for Sam to ditch Gaz and make it on his own. This creates a compelling character arc from start to finish that underpins the narrative of the show.
In a bid to salvage the show, Sam performs half-sketches with all the important parts missing making space for the audience to completely misunderstand the context, before inverting the scenario and performing the full sketch with help from an audience member. At which point everything suddenly clicks! There’s a strong level of audience participation from filling in for Gaz to the crowd acting as a collective narrator in a sketch where Sam is under arrest. The audience dictates why and what happened through an amusing one-word story game, making everyone reliant on each other to keep the narrative moving and creating something that can’t be replicated twice. Sam does his best to contain the unpredictable chaos that comes with giving a stranger the power to honk a horn – enough to make anyone regret their choices! Of course, Gaz has all the props and sound effects, meaning Sam is left to scrounge for anything to salvage the performance – which means enlisting the help of another audience member to create sound effects themselves, which goes about as well as you’d expect.
Overall, Sam & ___ is a clever and witty show with all the components to do very well. The performance is engaging and confident, with Sam Walls striking a balance between frantic energy and effortless delivery. It’s a shame the show isn’t running for more nights, because it feels like a real crowd-pleaser. The beauty of this type of show is its unpredictability, and Sam handles it brilliantly – not only engaging enthusiastic audience members but bouncing off those moments to create an electric atmosphere, while also putting the room at ease with an easy, casual style. It’s a triumph, balancing the emotional thread of Sam being repeatedly abandoned by Gaz and the highs of watching him figure out how to make the act work on his own.
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Amy is a writer and reviewer and her action-packed debut novel, CORNELIA FAIRFIELD AND THE DARKENED HEART is available in paperback from WATERSTONES and independent bookshops, and ebook (with an exclusive bonus chapter only on Kindle / Kindle Unlimited AMAZON).
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