‘Your entire day is geared towards those two hours. It’s easy to go a bit mental afterwards, but the work schedule’s pretty gruelling, so I can’t indulge myself too much, unfortunately!’ Kerry tells me he’s always loved making people laugh. ‘I used to do it at school, when I should have been working. I was one of those irritating kids who never apply themselves, but the teachers can’t come down too hard on them because they’re funny—they make everyone laugh. Yes, even the teachers. Even the headmaster, sometimes, though he’d have been a challenge for even the most talented comedian!’ On the available evidence, that most talented comedian is none other than Kerry himself. While at university, he honed his comic skills in stand-up clubs with the likes of Jack Tabiner and Joel Rayner. Signed up by his agent after a show-stopping open-mike slot at Laugh? I Nearly Died at London’s South Bank Centre, Kerry secured a bit part as Nero the Nerd in the ITV sitcom I Thought You’d Never Ask. The show won an award, and shortly afterwards Kerry found himself touring in Australia and New Zealand with Side-splitters. ‘There we were, paddling in the sea with cans of lager in our hands, saying to each other, “So this is our job? F***ing brilliant!” ’

Born in Ladbroke Grove, at the age of eight Kerry was part of an ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) programme for gifted children. ‘At the weekends I wanted to play football with my mates, but instead I had to go to workshops with Ted Hughes,’ he says. ‘I absolutely hated it.’ Kerry’s mother has never worked. His father was a security guard throughout his childhood, and is now a partner in a firm called Staplehurst Investigations. ‘You mean a private eye?’ I ask, impressed. ‘Yeah,’ Kerry laughs, ‘but it’s all boring financial stuff, corporate and dull. It’s not like you imagine: sneaking up on illicitly bonking couples with a camera—that’d be much more fun.’ Kerry’s parents never had much in the way of educational opportunities themselves and were determined that their son should. ‘They wanted me to go to university and study English literature, but there was no way I was doing that.’ He left school at 16, only to return a year later when he realised unemployment wasn’t the dream of a perfect relaxing life he’d imagined it to be. ‘All right, so I caved in,’ he laughs. ‘I went to university—but I didn’t do English effing literature, though I suppose there was quite a lot of it in my drama degree—but there was also stuff that felt practical and real, which is what I loved about it.’