Campbell McComas
Australian comedian writer and actor (1952-2005)
Geoffrey Campbell McComas AM (2 May 1952 – 8 January 2005) was an Australian comedian, writer and actor.
Early life and education
McComas attended Caulfield Grammar School and Scotch College in Hawthorn, Melbourne, and studied law and arts at Monash University.
He was the son of former radio 3DB broadcaster Geoff McComas.
Career
After practising law for several years, he became one of Australia's most renowned public speakers and comedians.
McComas's start in comedy was in May 1976, when he made his famous hoax lecture at Monash pretending to be Glanville Williams, "alternative professor of English law at University of Cambridge". The lecture was given to around 450 students, though it has often been remarked that thousands of people claim to have attended the lecture. Even those who knew Williams were reportedly fooled by the hoax. McComas then made a professional career out of similar stunts, hired by various organizations to perform in character as a "guest speaker". In August 1976, he was signed up by The Don Lane Show as its resident satirist.
McComas is probably best known to the wider general public, however, through his chairing televised comedy "debates" at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
The public source identifies “Campbell McComas” as australian comedian writer and actor (1952-2005). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Campbell, McComas and Australian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5028112. VIAF identifies the subject as 94208507. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2005 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Campbell McComas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.