How do you sustain a loser persona after winning the most coveted awards in UK comedy? John Kearns has nailed it. Having avoided the Edinburgh fringe since his unprecedented best newcomer 2013 and best show 2014 double-whammy, he now pitches up in Battersea with a beautifully downbeat festive show that celebrates the mundanity of family Christmases and the rich fantasy hinterland of a man whose life (awards notwithstanding) is going nowhere fast.
You have to adjust your expectations of comedy. Kearns’s shows are the opposite of uproarious; there are as many wistful silences as big laughs. His terrain is the plangent suburban tragicomedy of Hancock, but with the surreal twist that comes from performing in equine false teeth and a tonsure wig. And with lovely, economical writing that cranks up the bathos several notches, as when he marvels at the man who voices Charlie Brown being prosecuted for stalking (“How the other half live!”), or exults in his likely Christmas morning haul (“Empty the stocking. Four clementines, Spanish. I’ve been a good boy!”)
This is all animated by Kearns’s naive but knowing performance, in which he plays both himself and a gormless philosophical caricature thereof. Here we find him berating his personal trainer for requiring Kearns to forego toast, imagining himself aboard Santa’s sleigh (“Eyes on the sky, fella!”) and daydreaming a dysfunctional appearance on Ready Steady Cook. These routines are spliced with hilariously humdrum audio recordings of Kearns Christmas dinners past. This is richly idiosyncratic comedy, even as its depiction of everyday-eccentric family Christmases is readily identifiable.
- Battersea Arts Centre, London, until 10 December. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
