Sam Eley is Basil Crumbwick: Soul Sewage – Monkey Barrel Comedy

Soul Sewage is one accurate way to describe a character comedy which takes the piss out of the sad reality of today’s politics. Sam Eley takes on the persona of Basil Crumbwick, dressed in grey tracksuits and wife-beater, with an impressive papier-mache head the size of a suitcase. His mouth wide open in a perpetual state of paranoia and blood shot eyes popping out his face, Basil is a caricature of your reform voting 50-year-old neighbour who’s got nobody to love and everything to complain about.

In his own words: Basil’s impressed by the quality of his work, he’s got the peripheral vision of a scallop, he’s banned from pubs, he catches dogs in butterfly nets, and we’re lucky to have him. He stands spotlit in a tightly crammed basement which spends 11 months of the year an unlicenced Harry Potter experience room. He hides nothing and certainly makes an impression, I will admit it was enjoyable to laugh at him.             

The show makes light of the intensely xenophobic, racist, sexist and homophobic slander we’re always hearing thrown around by people like Basil. While some audience reviews reflect utter shock that anybody could find this offensive garbage funny, others claim to have been ‘folded over like a deckchair’ with hysterics the whole way through. The room was hanging onto Basil’s every raving rant and perhaps it’s the oh so taboo topics that created this patient yet reactive crowd. Eley teeters on the fine line of becoming yet another comedian complaining about PC gone mad, all-be-it in a self-aware manner. It would have been satisfying to see the room filled with an audience of Basil Crumbwick’s, that would be the real gag, and one that I hope Eley can achieve (without getting punched in the face).

Reviewer: Ella Beckley

Reviewed: 25th August 2026

North West End UK /Theatre Muse UK Rating: