Comedy review: Sam Simmons

'Seals," declares Sam Simmons. "And elephants." Asking a bloke what his favourite animal is might not seem like the cutting edge of interviewing, but before Sam Simmons turned to comedy as a career (in absolutely the best turn since Dick Whittington) he was a zookeeper in Melbourne and Taronga.

Sam was in "animal enrichment" with the aforementioned seals and elephants and also small native mammals. "I just hung out with them, created fun stuff for them to do so they wouldn't get bored," he says. Having spent an afternoon wandering round Edinburgh Zoo with the man, I am feeling pretty enriched myself.

Simmons' access to his "inner child" seems to be in almost constant use. While so many comics appear world-weary, Simmons has a kind of world-wonder. His delight in everything – including the charming fun-fur hat in the shape of a panda head that he has thoughtfully brought along for the photoshoot – is, quite frankly, a joy to be around.

Simmons loved being an animal enricher. He always has it at the back of his mind to return to zookeeping.

Not if I can help it. Having seen his show, I honestly believe the man is a comedy genius, and there are precious few of those around these days. He peppers our walk with fascinating facts about the animal kingdom. It is like being in the company of an incredibly articulate, philosophical, gentle version of Steve Irwin. In a white fun-fur panda-head hat.

Simmons doesn't entirely approve of Irwin. "He did a lot of good for animal conservation, he just didn't handle them properly," he says, leaping over to gaze admiringly at a bored looking rhea. "Rheas are awesome," he says. Before we get our first photo opportunity, I have discovered that the koala has the longest appendix in the animal kingdom because of its quasi-toxic diet of eucalyptus leaves. Simmons doesn't like koalas. He prefers wombats. Wombats are "awesome little fellas".

Simmons is the most modest of men, and he has absolutely nothing to be even slightly modest about. Since starting out in comedy 2003 he has won more comedy awards than many shows here have sold tickets, he is a hugely popular radio performer and a regular on Aussie TV. You would never know from his puppy-dog eagerness about being back in Edinburgh for the third time with a new show, Fail, and what he refers to as a "sex-pest moustache". He is particularly excited about The Incident, his other show this year, a "Waiting For Godot meets Point Break with inappropriate same-sex touching and a lot of cardboard" production he has mounted with fellow Aussie David Quirk.

Talking of mounting, when we get to the big apes we seem to have arrived on a speed dating night. A group of chimps has just arrived from Europe and sexual tension is running high. Sam checks the windows on the observation deck and nods sagely. "Poo." Apes in captivity get as moody as any intelligent being would, he says.

On his way to the seals in Melbourne each morning, Sam used to pass George, the gorilla. "Morning George!" he would call. And he knew immediately what kind of a mood George was in. Sometimes George would snarl and turn his back, sometimes he'd give a friendly nod. "They develop the same behaviour patterns as some human prisoners... do you know about the Dirty Protests?" I do – prisoners would cover the walls of their cells in their own faeces and throw it at wardens. "That's what chimps do." We wander on and Sam poses obligingly with a variety of parakeets who all seem to be high on the nectar they are given to bribe them to come and sit on visitors' shoulders.

When we leave the zoo the conversation turns to the best way to kill a mouse (NOT by putting them in the freezer, Sam says emphatically, which is how the keepers used to do it to feed the snakes in Melbourne) and the technique of talking to a goat and distracting it with a handful of chaff before killing it with a bolt-gun (big cats need to eat).

Apparently even more than doing that, Sam hated cleaning out the seal shit. It is the only thing he doesn't miss about zookeeping. Nothing in the animal world, he says, smells as bad as seal shit.

We end our afternoon in Bannerman's pub, about which Sam is characteristically enthusiastic. His natural curiosity about life leads us to try out Bannerman's latest wheeze, the U-Boat. This involves drinking a miniature of Jaegermeister while holding your fingers in your ears and enjoying the weird bubbly sounds in your head that ensue. Great fun. Great, great bloke. And if he is not on that Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award shortlist this week, I will eat his panda-head hat.

Sam Simmons' Fail is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, 9:15pm. The Incident is at Assembly@George Street, 4:45pm. Both shows run until 29 August

This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, 22 August, 2010