Richard Herring - Career

Career

Herring was born in Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire, but grew up in Cheddar, Somerset. He was educated at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he wrote and performed for a comedy troupe known as the Seven Raymonds as well as the Fringe favourites the Oxford Revue. He attained a 2:1 in History.

With Stewart Lee, Herring wrote material for Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's On the Hour (1991). It was during this time that the duo contributed to the creation of the character Alan Partridge. In 1992 and 1993, they wrote and performed Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World for BBC Radio 4. For Radio 1, they wrote and performed one series of Fist of Fun (1993), which was later remade for television. They also hosted a series on Radio 1 in 1994 and 1995, simply called Lee and Herring. A final television partnership with Lee, This Morning With Richard Not Judy, was a victim of BBC management reshuffles.

In 2002 Herring played the role of Renchard in the Doctor Who webcast Real Time, with Stewart Lee as Carey.

Since cordially ending his informal partnership with Stewart Lee, Herring has written and performed one-man shows to critical acclaim. Most noteworthy of these shows were Talking Cock – released as a book in 2003 – which The Guardian described as "man's answer to The Vagina Monologues. " The show was translated into several European languages, most successfully in French. The book was also published in Russian. Like Patrick Marber (a long-standing rival who was described as "curmudgeonly" or "a Cornish curmudgeon" in Fist of Fun), he has also written and produced several plays.

Herring co-wrote and presented the history based sketch show That Was Then, This Is Now (or TWTTIN), a six-part series produced for Radio 2. Two further series were broadcast in 2006 and 2007.

He has also written for television, most notably penning a large portion of Al Murray's sitcom vehicle Time Gentlemen Please, on which Stewart Lee worked as script editor. Herring has also contributed to the third series of Matt Lucas and David Walliams' popular TV sketch show Little Britain, as script editor. He has also worked for Russell Howard.

On 25 November 2002 Herring started his blog Warming Up as a way to overcome writer's block. He has written an entry for every single day since then, around about 3000 consecutive entries. It is estimated that he has a regular readership of over 3,000. Some of the ideas from Warming Up were used in his 2005 Edinburgh show Someone Likes Yoghurt, his 2006 Edinburgh show Ménage à Un and his 2007 Edinburgh show Oh Fuck, I'm 40!. In December 2008 the first six months of his blog were published in a book called Bye Bye Balham. The blog also proved a useful source for his 2010 book "How Not To Grow Up" and his 2011 stand up show "What is Love, Anyway?"

In 2005, he presented a chat show called Heads Up with Richard Herring on the Pokerzone channel, in which he interviewed professional poker players and celebrities about their careers and their love of the game. There were ten episodes in total.

Herring also made weekly appearances on Andrew Collins' BBC Radio 6 Music radio show on Saturday afternoons, where the two would discuss the weeks papers. Occasionally he hosted the show in Collins's absence and joined him for the whole of his final show on 31 March 2007. Herring was also a panellist on BBC Radio 4 gameshow Banter, which is presented by Collins.

In January 2007, Herring's live stand-up show Someone Likes Yoghurt was filmed in Cardiff and released on DVD on 16 May by the independent distributor Go Faster Stripe. A recording of an earlier show, The 12 Tasks of Hercules Terrace, was released on 5 March 2007. Herring returned to Cardiff in June 2007 to film his third DVD, ménage à un. This DVD was released on 19 December 2007. He recorded Oh Fuck, I'm 40 on 21 March 2008. This DVD was released by Go Faster Stripe on 9 December 2008. He recorded "The Headmaster's Son" on 2 June 2009 at the Bristol Tobacco Factory. This was released by Go Faster Stripe on 11 February 2010. The DVD of "Hitler Moustache" was recorded on 2 April at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff and was released through PIAS/Go Faster Stripe on 25 October 2010.

In February 2007, filming began on Herring's new comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends. As well as writing the script, Herring also played one of the characters alongside Gordon Kennedy, Claire Skinner, Rebecca Front, Sarah-Jane Potts, Robert Daws, Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie. The show was broadcast on ITV1 on 7 June 2007.

In January 2008 he began producing the Collings and Herrin (sic) podcast with Andrew Collins. They celebrated their two year anniversary with a live "100th" podcast (it was actually about the 105th one they had done) at the Leicester Square Theatre. On 30 January 2010 the pair started sitting in for Adam and Joe on BBC Radio 6 Music on Saturdays mornings, a slot they continued in for over a year.

His 2008 stand-up set The Headmaster's Son earned critical respect with four 5 star reviews and several 4 star reviews. The set covers his experience growing up in The Kings of Wessex School in Somerset where his father worked as headmaster and how this may have encouraged him to make puerile jokes. The show was seen by critics as a thoughtful look at his upbringing, and his relationship with his father, to whom the show is dedicated.

"The point of all the routines mentioned, when quoted in full, is vehemently anti-racist ... The show as a whole, far from examining my hatred of Pakistanis (another out of context quote from a routine intended to demonstrate the ludicrous nature of racism) is about trying to change the meaning of the toothbrush moustache so that it is no longer associated with Hitler and to make it into an anti-fascist symbol as a way of encouraging people to vote to ensure that the BNP never get elected again."

-Richard Herring, letter to The Guardian

The original idea behind his 2009 show, Hitler Moustache, was to see if he "could reclaim the toothbrush moustache for comedy – it was Chaplin's first, then Hitler ruined it." The show discusses broader issues, such as fascism and the British National Party. Herring and some of his contemporaries, including Dave Gorman, were angered when comments he makes in his show were grossly misrepresented in an opinion column written by critic Brian Logan in The Guardian. In his piece about offensiveness in comedy, Logan failed to communicate that Herring's line "that racists have a point" is accompanied by a critical commentary of democracy.

Amateur video of a stand-up routine interrupted by a heckler was mounted on YouTube and has been viewed by more than 1,500,000 people. In Warming Up, Herring noted ruefully that this was more than had ever seen him perform his prepared material.

On 12 October 2009, he recorded the first episode of As It Occurs To Me, a weekly stand-up and sketch show made especially for internet download. It also features Emma Kennedy, Dan Tetsell and Christian Reilly and had a first run of 10 episodes. The show made a modest profit and a second series of eight episodes ran from 17 May to 5 July 2010. It was nominated for best internet show at the 2010 Sony Awards, though failed to place. An Edinburgh special took place during the Fringe on 17 August and there were three autumn specials in October and November 2010. A third series of six episodes started on 16 May 2011.

On 8 April 2010, Herring made his first appearance on the BBC's Have I Got News For You. He returned to the show as a guest on 13 May 2011 for episode five of the 14th series.

On 14 October 2010, his Radio 4 series "Richard Herring's Objective" was first broadcast. In it Herring attempted to reclaim demonised items, starting with the Hitler moustache. The other episodes revolve around the hoodie, St George's Flag and Dolly the Sheep. An Edinburgh special about the "See You Jimmy" Hat was broadcast in August 2011 and a second series is being recorded in October 2011 with episodes about the Golliwog, the wheelchair, the Page 3 girl and the Old School Tie.

On 27 December 2010, Herring finished second on Celebrity Mastermind with a final score of 35 points. His specialist subject was Rasputin.

He was The Pod Delusion "Comedian of the Year 2010"

On 7 February 2011, As It Occurs to Me won the first Chortle Internet award On 20 March 2012 he retained it.

On 18 May 2011 he recorded a live performance of his 2010-11 show, Christ on a Bike: The Second Coming, which is due to be released by Go Faster Stripe on October 31, 2011.

In May 2011 it was announced that Fist of Fun would be released on DVD via Go Faster Stripe. The first series was released on December 5, 2011.

His 2011 Edinburgh show What Is Love, Anyway premiered at the Cow Barn on 3 August, and was taken on a 74 date tour between October 2011 and May 2012. It was filmed by Go Faster Stripe at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 30 March 2012 and released on 9 August 2012. His other 2012 Edinburgh show, Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast topped the iTunes chart for 3 weeks during August 2011 and guests included Adam Buxton, Sarah Millican, Al Murray and Omid Djalili.

At the end of 2011, he started a podcast where he would commentate on himself playing snooker against himself (Me1 vs Me2) in his basement.

At Edinburgh 2012 he reprised his 2002 show Talking Cock at the Udderbelly and did a second run of his Edinburgh Fringe Podcasts at Stand 1 with guests including Janet Ellis, Sarah Millican and Mick Foley.