Existential Boozer: A Proustian pint with John Kearns
“I’ll have a Guinness, if you are?” John Kearns said, standing at the bar of The Pilgrim Pub in Kennington.
He had a pep in his step that the very first question of Marcel Proust’s questionnaire would explain. But even without that information, the happiness of tucking into your first pint with a new mate felt evident from Kearns. The shoulders relaxed, and the atmosphere warmed as we were about to go headfirst into an existential conversation.
Considering Kearns possesses one of the sharpest tongues in British comedy, it was a surprisingly comforting exchange. On this tiny island, we have grown up under the illusion that a strong sense of humour exists in tandem with the ability to deliver fiercely barbed jibes at an unrelenting rate, and so a palpable feeling of social generosity was surprising, albeit welcomed.
With every question of Proust’s questionnaire, we would come to learn that Kearns lives on either side of that line. Profound one minute, flippant the next, he is the master of social and performative comedy, where existentialism is grappled, not undermined, with humour. Like his show Tilting At Windmills, his conversation style sees the seriousness and silliness of both aspects of life.
At the very end, you’ll realise that you know the man behind the wig and teeth a little bit better than you did before. Someone who loves a full English breakfast will move heaven and earth for his son and will treat you to a black cab if you catch him in the right place.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
“This isn’t a flippant answer, by the way, but when you just on a whim, have a full English breakfast in a café, and you’ve just gone in there on a whim. It sells roast dinners, so you know you’re in safe hands. At the till, they sell cake in clingfilm. And it comes with a fried slice, tinned tomato, sausage, egg. The host is maybe Turkish, just checking in on you. ‘Do you want more tea? Toast?’ There is a moment there of pure bliss. It’s like people are still reading newspapers in the. It’s pure happiness that.”
Are there any that stand out in Streatham or in London that you go to that have provided that happiness?
“Well, the honest answer, two hours ago, walking here, I did that”.
You seemed happy when you walked in.
“It’s the place up the road. What I just explained was what I was faced with. And I sat there, and I was like, ‘I cannot believe I’ve nailed this’. It was extraordinary. So it’s in Kennington, opposite the Vauxhall Tavern. It’s just a little café. And it was busy in there. You’re surrounded by the trades, of course, and I left there thinking I could do anything.”
What is your greatest fear?
“I think I live in perpetual fear of everything. I’m scared of everything, really, but I don’t think about any of it. I’m very much of the control, the controllables in your life. And so anything that I can’t control, I really am like, well, there’s no point fearing that.
“I did watch a video last night of a woman practising the organ at half two in the morning in the cathedral, and there’s a guy trying to get in the cathedral. It’s real. And this guy’s banging on the door, and she’s really scared. I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty scary’. That would be a fear of mine, maybe.
“Yeah, that’s my answer. Greatest fear is, if I’m rehearsing the organ at 2:30 in the morning in a cathedral and then I hear someone trying to get in”.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
“I will promise the earth. And unless someone says, ‘Do you remember what you promised?’ I don’t do it”.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
“What do I hate about people? It’s classic stuff, really. It’s, you know, a lack of self-awareness, usually”.
What is your greatest extravagance?
“Black cabs. If I’m feeling flush, I’ll just go mad and get a black cab. But as soon as I’m sat in the black cab, I’m regretting every minute of it.”
Watching the metre running…
“Watching the meter running, it’s just crazy. It’s crazy! And also, I’m usually not feeling flush like, Balham. And it’s, you know, the car can just go down the road.
“It’s usually me going, ‘Fuck it, you’re in Green Park! Let’s go to Victoria in a black cab’. You’ve got this adrenaline, and then you get in, and you haven’t moved for five minutes, and you’re looking at the bit of pavement where you’ve made that decision going, ‘Oh, I should have just walked’. Yeah, so black cabs.”
What is your current state of mind?
“I think I’m in flux at the moment. Very much in flux. I’m not entirely sure what that word means; I’m taking each day as it comes at the moment, for various reasons, professionally and personally.
“I did a job a few months ago, and it was a four-month job, and day one, you’re meeting people and four months later, it’s ‘Bye bye’, probably never see them in the same room again. And that was interesting because it’s been a while since I’ve met a group of people, and you kind of introduce yourself and who you are and who you’re introducing yourself as, was interesting. Because over the past six months, for various reasons, I’ve kind of been confronted slightly with having to work out wherever my life’s taking me. So my state of mind is, it’s quite fragmented, I’d say.”
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
“I like my appearance, if I’m honest. Again, I don’t know if that’s just age or whatever, but I am who I am. Sure, there’s things that you want to change, but it ain’t happening. Hard cut to me in five years, I’ve won the lottery or something. Jumping pecks. Crazy legs. At least a ten-inch… Cock, just to clarify.”
What is the quality you most like in a person?
“Number one is sense of humour. I will forgive anything, usually. Not mad stuff. I’m not meeting people in prison and am like ‘But he’s a funny guy. He burnt down the school! But have you heard him speak?!’ No. The best people in your life are the people that make you laugh. It really is that, and then that’s sad, actually, when you realise, maybe, that isn’t there. I think that’s also a sign where if maybe someone isn’t making you laugh. That vacuum is felt. But, yeah, the sense of humour has to be.”
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“I never watch myself back, doing standup, I never record myself or watch it back. But when I released a show a couple of years back, I had to watch it for editing reasons. I watched it back, and I kept saying, ‘You know’, and I was like, ‘I could have done with knowing this before I released this thing’. I’m not very good at picking up on that, and I’m sure people that know me would say, ‘You say this, that and the other’.”
I don’t think any of us know really…
“Well, that’s the thing. What are those things where sometimes you see them, and it’s like a cloud of words, and the bigger the word is what you say. I’d love to see one of them for, like, a day in the life of me. Because, in this conversation, it’s ‘fried slice’, ‘sausages’, ‘ten inch’. There’s a lot going on in this cloud.”
Fried slice I think is the biggest…
“Just massive letters, and then around it, is ‘love’, ‘sense of humour’…”
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
“My son”.
When and where were you happiest?
“It can’t be the café… This morning, I was dropping my son at school. I’m in the car. I look at him in the rearview mirror, and he’s kind of nodding along to Kung Fu Panda. He had eaten breakfast, so that just feels good. He’s full, he’s happy. I mean, very cliché stuff, but clichés are there for a reason. If he’s happy, I’m happy.”
It’s really nice that I asked for your perfect idea of perfect happiness, and it was breakfast at the café. And then your happiness is seeing your son after breakfast.
“Basically, my day starts well and usually just, just absolutely just grinds into the ground. But the highlight of my day is usually breakfast”.
Which talent would you most like to have?
“I’m very envious of people that can write funny lyrics for songs. I’ve got a couple of friends. My mate Pat Cahill is very good at this. Harry Hill. It really is…I absolutely just can’t do it. So I’d love to be able to do that. Write a funny song.”
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
“Well, to answer honestly at this moment, I’m in a brain space where I actually… I’m trying to be happy with what I’ve got, so to change anything… Of course, there’s stuff you want to change. There’s plenty. But, I very much, at the moment, in a space where I’m like, ‘Well, this is who you are. I think the fundamentals are OK. So, I’m sure there’s plenty I would change, but right now I’m not thinking like that.”
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
“I’m proud that, for 13 years, the taxman has known me as a comedian. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s hard, but I’m proud that that helps fund my life and my son’s life. Yeah, at this moment in time, I’m proud that that has worked out so far.”
Where would you most like to live?
“After my breakfast, I did go to another café, and I was set opposite a map of houses in a square. Now, what is the square? It’s in Kennington. It’s a beautiful square. It’s got a lovely green in the middle of it. It’s the Victorian square. Oliver’s going to be running around doing laps; it’s that. So, there’s that square in Kennington, that’s lovely.
“I used to live up in Highgate, and yeah, I’d love to live in the village in one of those nice houses. Ain’t happening, but you know? Let’s see how the tour goes. Maybe I’ll buy a £19million house previously owned by George Michael.”
What is your most treasured possession?
“A lot of my stuff is in storage at the moment, and I haven’t seen a lot of my stuff for about six months. My treasured possessions at the moment are literally what do I need? And its keys. It’s my thyroid medication and usually a phone charger. Now that’s bleak. But you know what else do you need? A pen! I do like having a pen. I always carry a pen on me. Yeah, the answer’s pen.”
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
“Things happening around you that you can’t change. And it’s affecting you. But you just know you have to let it happen. I mean, you can be miserable in that. But you obviously have to think, well, everything will pass and all that. That’s vague enough, I think.”
What is your favourite occupation?
“Window cleaner”.
What’s your most noticeable characteristic?
“That’s not for me to say, I don’t think”.
What trait do you most value in your friends?
“Again, it’s the sense of humour, but also it’s how long you’ve known them. I heard my dad on the phone to an old friend of his yesterday, and I just heard them asking after each other’s families and making each other laugh, and it really is just time. If shit hits the fan in your life, you usually end up reaching out to someone you’ve known a long time. So, it’s the fact that they’ve hung in there, and we’ve all just stayed just about enough in touch. Because it’s hard, obviously, but I guess the answer to that would be time. The time that they’ve given me. And I hope I have too.”
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
“My son was pretending to be Henry the Eighth last week. He hid under the table, and the idea is that he hands you a bit of paper, you read out the bit of paper, and the paper is saying, ‘Watch out, everyone! Henry the Eighth is about to turn up’. So you read that out, you kind of act like, ‘Oh my god!’ and then he pops up. Then the idea is that he just kind of eats everything on the table. I’m not saying I relate it to that, but he was convincing as Henry the Eighth. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So let’s say Henry the Eighth. Fried slice.”
What are your favourite names?
“Pyjamas. If I had a cat, I’d call it Pyjamas. It’s a mad answer to your favourite name, but it’s Pyjamas”.
What is it you most dislike?
“The angriest I’ve ever been over the past two years, or three years. I’m getting out of the car, my son is in his seat on the side of the road, so I undo his seatbelt, and I go, ‘Right, just go out the other door because this side of the road’. I go around, I open that door, I then go to the boot to get out his pram at the time.
“Then, all of a sudden I hear, slam! I look round and there’s a guy just walking past me, and he’s just slammed my car door shut because in his head, he’s like, ‘Who’s this prick just leaving the door wide open, like blocking the pavement?’ Even though I checked, I just saw a guy walking, but my son could have had his fingers there, because he didn’t know my son was getting out. My blood boiled in a way that I can’t remember in my life when that has happened.
So, I guess…why did I start talking about that? What don’t I like? Well, what would you say that guy was doing? He walked past and was purely being selfish, thinking about himself and not thinking about why. There we go. Selfishness. Simple as that.”
What is your greatest regret?
“When people say they don’t have regrets, I think that’s a sign of madness when someone says that. I hate reading someone say it. What they mean is, if you live your life thinking about your regrets, you’re fucked. I’ve got loads of regrets. If you gave me a day, I would give you a 100. But hey, regrets are done.”
How would you like to die?
“I think maybe in my 70s, 80s, I’m going to find God again. Not again. I don’t know if I ever found him properly, but I think I might find him. I might get into Latin Mass”.
And how might that end up with you, dead?
“I trip over going to church. I trip over, going up the steps to Westminster Abbey”.
What is your motto?
“One foot in front, the other. I think about that often. I genuinely do, I’d say once a week, look at my feet and think, well, if you’re doing this, then you are OK”.
One for the road, what is the best British comedy sitcom of all time?
“Well, for me it’s Only Fools and Horses. The most underrated of the past 20 years? Phone Shop. I think Phone Shop is a great sitcom”.
Why Only Fools and Horses for the greatest?
“Oh, John Sullivan. I mean, it is mad, he wrote them all on his own. It’s crazy, and I genuinely, well, this could be hyperbole, but you could look at his work just like we look at Dickens to understand the Victorian era. I think you can look at Only Fools and Horses to understand the working class and the ’80s.
“Also, just with the language that was used. I think John Sullivan was a genius. And that show, I mean, that show was the first time I probably saw a wedding, a funeral… I love the way old people were treated with complete mutual respect. But that means that they were slagged off or, you know? They were treated equally. There was a moral code throughout that whole thing.
“Yeah, I think John Sullivan was a genius and away from the chandelier falling, Delboy falling through the bar, all those kinds of clichés. As a document of the time, I absolutely love that show.”
