By Stephanie-Rose Keeling for Cross Rhythms..

John Archer is a comedy magician, working for CBBC, gigging in comedy clubs and performing at Christian festivals. Stephanie-Rose Keeling caught up with him at ONE Event about his thoughts on success, being true to your faith at work and being funny.

Stephanie: How did you become a Christian?

John: I’ll tell you how I became a Christian, I was basically going out with a girl, I was 19 and the girl was a Christian. I started going out with her and she dragged me along to church. So it was a process really of being dragged along to church, listening to sermons, asking questions and then I went to Art College and on the course there was a guy called Richard Nicholson and he played bass guitar in a Christian rock band called Giant Killer in the eighties. I played guitar and sang a little bit in bands myself so I got talking to him and it was him that led me to the Lord one night in a little hostel in Whitby. That came after a lot of listening to things and asking questions, so it was a gradual process and then a point of decision through chatting with Richard.

Stephanie: Brilliant. So you’ve had an amazing career. You worked for CBBC, can you tell me a little bit about how you integrate being in the media industry, but also being a Christian as well?

John: Do you know what, I don’t really think of it as being an issue or a problem. I’ve got my Christian faith and I’ve got Christian values and I try to apply them when I do my job, but I don’t think it’s any different whatever I was doing really. You might get different challenges; people seem to think that because you’re in the media that you’re gonna get drug things thrown at you and wild parties, but unfortunately I don’t get much of that [laughs]. So the same as any Christian would in any job, you deal with the situations the same way.

Stephanie: I like that. So in terms of young people wanting to be successful, what would you say to them about how to find success and what do you think the meaning of success is?

John: I don’t know. For me success is being happy. I think success is doing something you’re happy with and you feel proud of. My idea of being successful is I just wanna do what I do as best as I can, not because I wanna be better than anybody else, just because it’s satisfying to know that you’re doing what you’re doing well. Again in any job, I think if I was a dentist – well I wouldn’t want to be a dentist – but if I was a dentist [Stephanie – you’d have good teeth] I’d have good teeth, I would – I’d wanna be a good dentist. So I think success is just about doing what you do well and being happy.

Stephanie: Yeah definitely. So can you just quickly tell me in a nutshell, a bit about your career, so your magic, what you do in the Christian sector and what you do on CBBC?

John: You know, that’s a hard question. People say what do you do and I do have a very broad amount of things that I do. My main job that I always classify myself as is comedy magician. Sometimes people call me a comedian, but I always think, well it’s not just a comedian and I’m not a full on stand-up comedy guy, I’m sort of comedy and magic. So that’s what I class myself as – comedy magician, but I do secular gigs, I’ll do corporate events, big works dinners, I’ll do comedy clubs, I’ll do anywhere with any comedy magician…private parties. Then I’ve got the church side of things, the Christian side of things, where they might just want entertainment in the church, but sometimes they want a bridge building thing where I can share a little bit about my faith. Others want much more full on, so they want my comedy testimony, which is what I’m going to be doing here at the ONE Event. Then I’ve got the television as well and I do a little bit of variety television. My best friend is Tim Vine, so whenever he’s doing TV I quite often get roped in by him to write things for him and then the CBBC show and bits of television that come up – I do them as well so I’ve got my finger in lots of pies, but they’re all related to being a comedy magician.

Stephanie: A jack of all trades. So let’s finish this off then with a joke. Tell me a joke.

John: Do you know what, I don’t tell jokes. I write jokes for Tim so [Stephanie: so you’re just naturally very funny] No I’m not really naturally very funny, I work hard at it, but I’m not a joke teller, I sort of say silly things, which out of context don’t make sense, and I pick on people and I mess about, so yeah, you’ll have to come and see me.

Stephanie: Definitely do that then. Brilliant, thank you very much!

John: Thank you! 

http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/life/Comedy_Magic_And_The_Christian_Faith/55075/p1/