Standup comic James Campbell’s material includes an absurdist riff on a fictional video game, Grand Theft Tractor, and a song, written from the perspective of a dog, that references the Monkees: “Then I saw that stick/Now I’m a retriever”.

Campbell, who looks a lot like a shaggy Orlando Bloom in his publicity photos, will perform his show Comedy 4 Kids at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival four times between Tuesday (May 13) and May 18. (Go to www.childrensfestival.ca/ for details.) The festival itself runs in the tents in Vanier Park from Monday (May 12) to May 19.

Even though he is billed as the world’s only standup comedian for children, Campbell insists that he’s not treating his young fans as fundamentally different from himself. “A lot of other kids’ stuff tries to hit a certain market or get certain funds from government,” he says by phone from his rural home near Chatteris, England. “There are no educational goals in what I do whatsoever.…It’s standup before it’s kids’ stuff. It’s just me doing what I like to do.”

A lot of what he likes to do is cheekily goofy. In one bit, for instance, he relates the size of cows to the products you get from them. He mimes milking a tiny cow to get skim milk, and grabs a huge teat in both arms to milk the cow that gives cheese.

This sensibility appeals to a wide age range, he says. “I get a lot of grownups coming along without children, and they enjoy it just as much.”

Still, Campbell, who also performs in adult clubs, clearly has a soft spot for his younger fans. “Give me children over drunk adults anytime,” he says. “Children have a much longer concentration span. I’ve never played a comedy club where all of the grownups have been sober, so I don’t know whether it’s the alcohol that does it. But generally you get a much more attentive audience with children. And you can do a lot more complicated stuff. You can do more far-reaching callbacks—you can set something up at the top of the show and call back to it at the end and the audience will remember. And, of course, they quote you in the playground the next day.”

Campbell’s other projects include London’s Comedy Academy 4 Kids, where young comedians are given a safe place to hone their skills. A 12-year-old from that program will premiere his own show at Edinburgh’s Fringe festival this year.

And he organizes an event called the Comedy Club 4 Kids, in which comedians who usually perform for adults try their hand at entertaining younger audiences. “Generally, it goes very well,” he says. “Some of them just do what they usually do but take the curse words out. And that seems to work. Some of them specifically write for a children’s audience—they take stuff they’ve got and adapt it accordingly. And some of them work it out as they go along.”

Still, he allows, “I’ve seen a few great comedians die horribly.” And why does that happen? “Because they’ve thought it’s different. They’ve thought, ‘They’re children and I have to play down to them,’ and that doesn’t work.”

An underlying philosophy begins to emerge. “The thing about standup is that you get the truth,” Campbell says. “And you don’t get that in a lot of things.”