Kearns reckons he didn’t know what to expect himself when writing the show. He was struggling with doing straight stand-up but after doing a clowning course with Dr Brown (clown phenomenon Philip Burgers), things began to change drastically. “Dr Brown said that no-one gives a shit about your shitty ideas, no matter what you’re trying to say,” recalls Kearnes. How does that help? “It teaches you to be sensitive on stage,” Kearns says. “Listen to the audience. You’ve got to pay attention to the audience. If the audience laughs when you move your left arm like this, you play it again. It’s being sensitive to the audience.”
Sight Gags for Perverts is currently number one with a bullet, as they used to say. Kearns has been very successful very quickly and there are projects with the BBC afoot. The London Evening Standard gave him four stars and called his show ‘a brilliantly constructed piece of absurdist clowning. A latter day Godot, funny and profound.’
What does Kearns think makes him funny? “A lot of the reviews called it ‘bold’. When someone comes on stage in a wig, people find that funny. It distracts them. I have this quite high cockney voice. It depends on who’s there,” he adds, modestly. “If they don’t heckle, it’s purely because they don’t know what to heckle. They don’t know what it is; they’re intrigued.”
How much of his show is scripted and how much is improvised? “It’s scripted, but there are bits in between that go the other way,” Kearns replies. “With clowning you don’t go on stage with pre-conceived ideas; you meet the audience half way.” Kearns says that at his some of his shows in Edinburgh he was walking a knife edge at times with ‘people not getting it.’ “At least get people to understand what it is you’re doing,” he continues.
On the subject of the comedy greats and the aforementioned great British tradition of cross-dressing, Kearns says “I find it funny. I find it very funny. The great thing about those type of comics, the likes of Les Dawson, Jack lemon in Some Like it Hot, you don’t watch them and go ‘Oh it’s a girl. You’re laughing ‘cos it’s not. Tommy Cooper, whatever he was doing, he was still Tommy Cooper. I want people to laugh at me, a man, an idiot, dressing up. ”
What advice would Kearns offer wannabes? “It’s quite difficult to hear advice,” he answers. “You have to learn it. You’re always being told to be honest, do what makes you laugh. The reason why people like this show is that a lot of it is true. I did a free show at the Edinburgh Fringe and it gained momentum; people really liked it. People like the underdog.” Most of all, according to Kearns, a good performance is about commitment. “It’s true commitment – ‘this is going to happen, this is the act.’ In the first minute you don’t blink. With any art form – commitment is a force.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
