Alone, they are acclaimed and award-hogging entertainment colossi. Together, they are the hottest double-act in the UK. I am describing – of course – beloved crooners Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, but the words might, at a stretch, be applied to comedians Adam Riches and John Kearns. That parallel is part of what has drawn the latter twosome to make this festive season’s most unlikely stage show, wherein the fringe favourites manifest onstage in character (sort of) as those titans of the mainstream, Ball and Boe.
“These guys sell out arenas,” says Kearns. “They have, as we speak, the No 1 album in the UK.” Kearns delighted Taskmaster audiences, and is the only comic to win best newcomer and best show in successive years at the Edinburgh fringe. Riches is an ex-Edinburgh champ too. But arenas have proved resistant to their charms. Meanwhile, reports Kearns with dismay, Ball and Boe “were interviewed on Radio 2 last week, and described as the new Morecambe and Wise.”
Whither the career comic, when amusing audiences à deux has been hijacked by two leather-lunged stars of opera and musical theatre? The show’s starting point, say Riches and Kearns, was as a long-running in-joke, deriving from the question: “Why is comedy at a point where it’s impossible to get anything made?” They watched Ball and Boe do a lavish Christmas special on TV. They noticed that “the Money Saving Expert guy” (ie Martin Lewis) was “doing a live show with tens of thousands of pounds spent on a spectacular set. But that trust isn’t put in comedians. It’s put in singers. It’s put in people who give financial advice.”
“There are fewer comedy people making comedy on TV,” says Riches. “It’s often other personalities invited to be funny.” Adds Kearns: “the biggest sketch group in comedy right now is [football pundits] Roy Keane, Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville.” And so was born an idea, whereby Kearns and Riches, who have never worked as a duo, might perform in the guise of Ball and Boe. They went to see the singers live. “And they were phenomenal,” says Kearns. The day after, the UK went into lockdown, which Kearns duly spent with the crooners’ tunes reverberating around his head.
Finally, Soho theatre in London called the pair’s bluff, inviting them to make the jokey idea a reality. They said yes, despite not having an idea for the show, says Riches, “beyond the idea of actually doing it”. “What appealed massively,” says Kearns, “was how silly the idea was. And how that almost feels unfashionable and radical in comedy now.” “It’s our fastest-selling show,” says Riches. “Because it’s got nothing to do with a career plan,” says Kearns. “There’s no message. It’s pure silly.”
The pair are very forthcoming about what the show is not. It’s not – as per one early idea – a frame-by-frame lip-sync to the illustrious singers’ live act. It’s not a send-up of Ball and Boe – not least because “you watch their stuff and they’ve already taken care of everything you might take the piss out of,” says Riches. “And they’ve done it so well.” In conversation, the comedians are all gushing praise for their singing counterparts. And here’s why. “If you did a show about Beyoncé,” says Kearns, “she’s not hearing about it. You’re not getting a DM from someone going ‘oh yeah I saw her yesterday, do you want to know when she’s coming to see it?’ The reason I’m constantly saying how good [Ball and Boe] are is that we might at any moment hear their knock on the dressing room door!”
But it’s not just that. In all their obsessive research for the show, Kearns and Riches have palpably become fascinated with Ball and Boe. Their status as interpreters of other people’s work, say, rather than initiators of their own: “the idea that your career is covers, that your successful career [derives from] other people’s successful careers, really interested us,” says Kearns. “And the idea of how you sustain a career in show business. They have done that, by working together. Weirdly, we’ve kind of found a slight kinship with them.” Says Riches: “The show’s exploring double acts, and friendship.” “And what happens,” adds Kearns, “when you join together and try to create something – like they did, and like we’re doing.”
Expect a show about all that, then – with songs. After our chat, the pair are off to their singing lessons. “We’re going to try our best,” breezes Riches, “but – you might be surprised to learn – we’re not as good as them.” Expect funny as well. “First and foremost,” he adds, “it’s got to make people laugh. And we’re the two people it’s got to make laugh first.” But expect nothing more specific than that. “We’ve leaned into the mystery of not knowing what the show’s going to be,” says Riches, eyes a-twinkle. “The fun of it for us should hopefully be the fun of it for you, which is that you walk into a room where you genuinely don’t know what it’s going to be.”
