John Kearns @ The Stand, Glasgow

There comes a time when every ‘niche’ Taskmaster graduate comes face to face with the show’s hefty fanbase: a new live audience who are at best bewildered, and at worst unreceptive. Luckily for us, John Kearns has a stoic confidence in his craft. He understands that his nationally televised gentle incompetence is a far cry from his be-wigged self – so he treats newcomers with empathy.

Portions of The Varnishing Days serve as a self-vivisection, with Kearns pondering the significance of The Wig and what his young son will think of it. For the uninitiated, it might be easy to mistake the costume for a cheap sight gag, but it’s much more than that. Aside from being a signifier of his on-stage persona, the combination of wig and half-mast glasses frame his already expressive eyes in such a way that you could probably watch the performance on mute and still laugh. 

Kearns’ comedy is awesome in its blending of sense and stupidity, and this hour feels like the epitome of that skill. It’s meticulously crafted: early one-liners plant the seeds of themes that will emerge later on, and he describes action like he’s writing a bardic epic. But his delivery is so silly that he can set us off with just one word (he’s not exactly a comic who relies on swearing for quick laughs, but by God the man can deliver a “fuck”).

For all the absurdity of his performance, The Varnishing Days is a tender ode to fatherhood. It’s full of laugh-till-you-fall-off-your-stool stories and inexplicable Cockney swagger, but at the show’s core is the image of father and son in a stand-off, slowly encircling, building their perceptions of one another.

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Reviewed on 23 March at The Stand, Glasgow as part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival
John Kearns: The Varnishing Days, on tour including The Stand, Glasgow, 13 May; The Stand, Newcastle, 14 May; Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, 30 May
Follow John Kearns on Twitter @johnsfurcoat