Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Creator / RichardHerring

Go To

1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/richard_herring.jpg]]
2%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
3Richard Keith Herring (born 12 July 1967) is a British [[RecordedAndStandUpComedy stand-up comedian]], writer, and director, most famous for his work in double acts with Creator/StewartLee and later Andrew Collins. He is also a pioneer in Internet Comedy, being a long-running blogger and podcaster.
4
5Herring began his career at Oxford University, appearing with the ''Oxford Revue'' at the Edinburgh MediaNotes/FringeFestival, and also struck up a partnership with Stewart Lee. As the double-act LeeAndHerring, they wrote material for ''Series/TheDayToday'' forerunner ''OnTheHour'', created and starred in sketch shows Lionel Nimrod's ''Inexplicable World'' (Radio 4) and ''Fist Of Fun'' (Radio 1) and presented three series of Lee and Herring on Radio 1 which mixed sketches with music chosen by the duo themselves. They later starred in a television version of ''Fist of Fun'' and a live Sunday morning show called ''This Morning With Richard Not Judy'' (''TMWRNJ'').
6
7Lee and Herring split up amicably after TMWRNJ was canceled. Herring moved on to touring Stand Up as a solo act, an act which became notorious during 2009 and 2010 with his shows ''Hitler Moustache'', which attempted to 'reclaim the toothbrush moustache for comedy' and ''Christ on a Bike'' which dealt with issues of religion. 2009 also saw the beginning of ''Podcast/AsItOccursToMe (AIOTM)'', an 'internet stand-up and sketch show' which was recorded live in front of an audience and released for free as a podcast.
8
9Other forays into online comedy include ''The Podcast/CollingsAndHerrin Podcast'' with Andrew Collins and his Blog ''Warming Up'' which has been updated daily since November 25th, 2002, making it one of -- if not the -- world's longest-running daily blogs, and is now released in podcast form and on Soundcloud.
10
11Herring's comic style is similar to that of his erstwhile partner Lee in that he regularly uses {{Deconstruction}} and {{Call Back}}s. He also has a penchant for unwieldy [[FunWithAcronyms acronyms]].
12
13Herring has released several of his stand-up shows on DVD, has various podcasts available, amongst them the long-running ''Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (RHLSTP)'' in which he interviews comedians, and he has written the autobiographical ''How Not To Grow Up''. He also appeared as a contestant in [[Recap/TaskmasterSeriesTen series 10 of]] ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}''. [[spoiler:He won both that series and the second Champion of Champions special.]]
14
15He also writes an amusing [[http://metro.co.uk/tag/richard-herring-column/ column]] inside the Friday ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Metro]]''.
16
17----
18!!Tropes associated with Richard Herring:
19
20* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Herring's show ''Headmaster's Son'' describes his time at a school where his father is the headmaster/principal.
21* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Dismissed in ''Talking Cock'' after reading the results of his audience survey Rich concludes that for most men having a bigger ''bladder'' would probably be of more use [[DontExplainTheJoke since it means they can drink more beer without... yeah.]]
22* BitingTheHandHumor: Herring joked in ''AIOTM'' that he was using his good material from his position as a writer on Russell Howard show ''Good News'' to develop routines for AIOTM instead. Shortly after, he lost his job on ''Good News''.
23* CallBack: Herring makes references to ''Series/FistOfFun'' and his work with Stewart Lee, possibly as a TakeThat to reviewers who ''still'' remind him of his TV work.
24* CannotTellAJoke: He regularly remarks that he doesn't tell jokes in his comedy, going as far as to say in ''AIOTM'' that he never told a joke in the entire series. {{Lampshaded}} in a routine where a man leans out of a taxi and shouts 'Tell us a joke mate!' leaving him unsure of how to respond despite being a comedian.
25* {{Deconstruction}}: Another trope he shares with Creator/StewartLee. An example of this is in ''Hitler Moustache''. He makes fun of the appearance of Carol Thatcher after noting that she was fired from a job for using the word 'Golliwog'. The show then breaks down into a conversation with himself debating whether he is as bad as Carol Thatcher for mocking her appearance when she did the same albeit more generally. Probably also an example of HypocriticalHumor.
26* {{Determinator}}: The whole point of ''The 12 Tasks of Hercules Terrace'' was Rich's modern day attempt to emulate the mythical hero and avert a mid life crisis. Perhaps the most impressive were dating fifty different women in fifty consecutive days, and completing [[http://www.richardherring.com/cnps.php Consecutive Number Plate spotting]] - which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin involves spotting car number plates in the correct order]] - something that he acknowledges almost drove him crazy.
27* GodwinsLawOfFacialHair: in "Richard Herring: Hitler Moustache", he spoke at length about the toothbrush mustache and tried to make it popular again.
28* LostInCharacter: Rich's "Hitler Moustache" was real. He had major worries as to whether he should shave it off for his parent's wedding anniversary.
29* {{Malaproper}}: Herring mis-pronouncing the word 'pumpkins' as 'cumpkins' in an episode of ''AIOTM'' led to multiple {{CallBack}}s throughout the series riffing on the Cumpkin. In case you were wondering, 'You take a jack-o-lantern, get at least five men to cum in said jack-o-lantern, and then get a woman to put it on her head'
30* MistakenForRacist: In ''Hitler Moustache'' he recalls how he had his iPhone stolen in Brixton, then realised he was a white man with a ''Hitler moustache'' driving around with the police to find the (black) thief.
31* ObfuscatingStupidity: Herring often portrays himself as an idiot, when in fact he is a graduate of Oxford University.
32* SelfReferentialHumor: Herring often refers to the fact that he is no longer on television as much as he used to be when part of Lee and Herring, and also often remarks on Creator/StewartLee's greater success of the duo.
33* SmiteMeOMightySmiter: Rich challenges God to do this in ''Christ On A Bike''.
34* SoUnfunnyItsFunny: Does a (hilarious) routine about being jaded after twenty years on the comedy circuit and how he's trying to challenge himself by ''not'' being funny.
35* SophisticatedAsHell: Quite a lot, the ''Collings and Herrin'' podcast especially was two very intelligent people [[VulgarHumor being extremely vulgar]] at times (see the 'Cumpkin' bit above).
36* TakeThat: Creator/PeterKay, Creator/MichaelMcIntyre, Lembit Opik, Andrew Collins, Keith Allen, Patrick Marber. Much like Creator/StewartLee, the list goes on.
37* TheUnfairSex: Discussed in ''Talking Cock'', strictly speaking there should be just as many women having affairs as men. [[InsaneTrollLogic Unless there's one gigantic super-slag woman somewhere.]]

Top