Richard Herring

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Biography

Richard Keith Herring (born 12 July 1967) is an English stand-up comedian, writer and ventriloquist whose early work includes the comedy double act Lee and Herring, with Stewart Lee.

Towards the end of the double act, Herring also worked as a writer, producing four plays. After Lee and Herring went their separate ways he co-wrote the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please, but quickly returned to performance with concept-driven one-person shows like Talking Cock, Hitler Moustache, and Christ on a Bike, as well as regular circuit stand-up. Herring has created thirteen of these stand-up shows since 2004, performing them for eleven consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with annual tours and a final performance recorded for DVD. His 2016–17 show was a ‘best of’ tour, drawing from these shows.

He has maintained a daily blog called Warming Up without a break since November 2002. His blog is archived by the British Library for purposes of UK documentary heritage.

He is recognised as a pioneer of comedy podcasting, initially with broadcaster Andrew Collins on The Collings and Herrin Podcast and then with the interview podcast, Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (aka ‘RHLSTP’).

In October 2009, he recorded the first episode of As It Occurs To Me (aka ‘AIOTM’), a weekly radio-style stand-up and sketch show made for the Internet, starring him, Emma Kennedy, Dan Tetsell, and Christian Reilly. In 2017, AIOTM returned as a six-episode web series.

In 2011 Herring began playing himself at snooker for an audio podcast called Me1 vs Me2 Snooker.

In 2012 he recorded the first 16 episodes of the long-running podcast RHLSTP with guests including Tim Minchin, Stewart Lee, Adam Buxton, David Mitchell, and Armando Iannucci. In 2013 he recorded nine additional episodes with guests including Stephen Fry, Russell Brand, and Mary Beard. His interview with Stephen Fry was covered by national and international news media including the BBC and Sky News when Fry revealed a recent suicide attempt.

In 2013 he recorded the first episode of a six-part internet stand-up, sketch and interview show Richard Herring’s Meaning of Life, structured around the philosophical concepts of ‘Creation’, ‘the Paranormal’, ‘Love’, ‘Death’, ‘Good & Evil’ and ‘the Shape of Things To Come’, and released online between in 2014-2015.

In 2014, the weekly Richard Herring Show was broadcast on Fubar Radio, co-presented with comedian Lou Sanders.

In March 2018, in aid of International Women’s Day, Herring raised over £150,000 for the domestic abuse charity Refuge by responding to anyone on Twitter who asked when International Men’s Day was (it’s November 19th). He did the same in 2019, raising almost £130,000, and in 2020, raising a further £70,000. In 2020 he wrote a book about his experiences and toxic masculinity called The Problem With Men.

In March 2020 Herring started streaming regularly on Twitch as the world went into lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. He produced weekly remote episodes of his podcast, RHLSTP, did a live feed of Stone Clearing most weekday mornings, and played himself in Me1 vs Me2 Snooker (with 32 personas) in the evenings. He also appeared on Comedians: Home Alone on BBC2 in July with an edited frame of Me1 vs Me2 Snooker. He did occasional non-director’s commentaries for films on Twitch, as well as a newspaper review with his 128-year-old ventriloquist dummy called Ally and Herring’s Twitch of Fun.

[Source: Wikipedia, 01/03/2021.]

Taskmaster notes

In his 2020 Reddit AMA, Richard revealed that he had been somehow involved in one of the live Taskmaster Edinburgh shows which happened before the show was commissioned. He noted that Tim Key had cracked one of his ribs at the start of the show. No further details about the nature of his involvement were revealed.