Review by Steve Bennett

This is a strange, but ultimately entertaining hour of hokum, frequently bizarre but often funny in its own ridiculous way.

John Kearns expects his audience – or party guests – to make the steep climb on board straight away. The first few minutes are a rather shouty, haphazard mess as he insistently goads us before barking out dinner party chit-chat over Bond themes. It’s confusing if not downright annoying, with jokes no better than called a burnt roast ‘chicken à la fucked’ or a bit of odd surrealism imagining a war between Ferrero Rocher and After Eights. He’s trying to portray himself as slightly insane, and he’s a little too convincing.

But gradually things start to settle down – at least by comparison – as he explores some stronger ideas more fully, employing the strange intensity of his performance to good effect. The segment about a whale’s field of vision is particularly strong.

A real boost comes with the arrival of Patrick Cahill, the recent BBC New Comedy Award finalist, as Kearns’s old friend and bizarrely-dressed flatmate, who hadn’t actually been invited to this party. The show might have only Kearns’s name in the title, but they make a strong double act, as there’s always an spark in the air when they share the stage, and Cahill also provides some silly musical interludes to add to the Knockabout fun.

This is quite an interactive hour, with Kearns assigning back-stories to many audience members to help fill out the premise – that he has gathered all his old friends to this dinner party to announce he is dying. He wants to reminisce about old times, and wants our help recreating his finest moment: winning a school relay race. But as Cahill bluntly reminds him, the triumph wasn’t as clear-cut as he likes to remember.

Such fragmented stories of his life so far, and the interaction with a fellow loser on stage, flesh out this rather pathetic character, and there’s more than a touch of sadness to the finale, which means that even though it’s often rough around the edges, the show is ultimately pretty satisfying.

Review date: 24 Aug 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett