Ask a Comedian: Richard Herring
BY READERS DIGEST
23rd Apr 2024 Humour
4 min read
From his days as half
of the comedy duo Lee and Herring to his hit RHLSTP podcast and his new,
cancer-themed stand-up Can I Have My Ball Back?, Richard Herring is a
comedy legend. Ian Chaddock asks him about his funniest experiences
What stand-up special or comedy film made you fall in love with comedy?
As a young kid, things like Tiswas got me into comedy. As an older kid,
probably the Monty Python films.
Life of Brian was a massive deal for me,
but also quite difficult to see because my parents wouldn’t let me go and I
wasn’t quite old enough but I managed to wangle my way in somehow. Life of
Brian explains the most of what I’ve become.
What do you remember about your first time doing stand-up?
Towards
the end of university, a few of us got invited to go and do some stuff at the
Tic Toc in Coventry.
I did an old man character—a Somerset Alf Garnett sort of
character—and I brought a crate to stand on like I was at Speaker’s
Corner—which I did with that character too. I think Phill Jupitus was on it as
well, as Porky the Poet—I think it was around 1989.
What’s the weirdest heckle you’ve ever heard and how did you reply?
The
one I remember from the Lee and Herring days was that I would do a bit where I
would pick on a teenage boy in the audience and say how I was better than them
because my mum didn’t give me my money and I had pubic hair. Then I would
invite them to come back at me and they would usually just say I was fat or
stupid or whatever, which was the intention.
"One kid heckled me by saying 'the sleevs of your jacket are slightly frayed'—he'd seen through me"
But one kid said “The sleeves of
your jacket are slightly frayed”. I looked at them and they were. It was a
pinpoint heckle. I was meant to be crushed by the heckle, that was the joke.
But he’d got me there, he’d seen through me.
What has been your funniest live show experience?
Richard Herring is now on tour with his stand-up show Can I Have My Ball Back? Credit: Steve Brown
I
think the Brian Blessed on RHLSTP would be hard to beat. He just took over
and I mainly just sat there with him standing in front of me pontificating, but
occasionally got to join in. But it was an amazing, crazy atmosphere in the
room. I got a couple of jokes in that went down quite well. You only
occasionally get that kind of electricity in a room.
"There audience were laughing so much that their heads went back, and I hadn't even got to the funniest part"
During Christ on a Bike
in Edinburgh, it was my return to stand-up and doing a one-man show and I was
nervous. There was a routine in that show that got the audience laughing so
much that their heads were going back, which you don’t often get, I knew I
hadn’t even got to the funniest part of the routine. That level of hysteria
doesn’t happen very often.
As well as stand-up, you’ve worked on many TV shows and a pioneering comedy podcast. Which format do you find most rewarding and why?
It’s difficult to pick. Podcasts are sort of like stand-up in that you have
autonomy and nobody tells you what to do, apart from the audience. I just
think, as a medium, the artistic freedom to be able to do whatever you want and
get things up straight away, have been the most fruitful and have allowed me to
carry on.
The podcast definitely helped my audience grow for stand-up, because
I almost had to start again. Without the podcast I might not be doing anything
now.
Your new stand-up comedy show is about your testicular cancer and is called Can I Have My Ball Back? Did comedy and making it the source of a book and stand-up special help you deal with what must have been a scary time?
When
you’re a comedian, anything that doesn’t kill you you’re thinking, this
could be great material. My early diagnosis was that it wasn’t anything
serious and I won’t say I was disappointed, but there was a part of me that
thought I wouldn’t be able to do a show. It was very scary because they didn’t
let me know how easily treatable testicular cancer was until it had been
confirmed as cancer, which was after the operation. But being able to joke
about it and talk about it really helped. Other people contacted me and told me
that they’d had it 30 years ago and they’re fine, so that was helpful.
Thinking
you might die gets things into sharp focus, both comedically and more
seriously. The first year jokes really got me through it, doing the remote
podcast (it was during COVID-19). A week after I’d had the operation, Jeremy
Paxman was my guest and I got to talk to him about what I’d been through.
"Balls do not signify masculinity, they're the weakest thing you could ever have on your body"
It’s a funny place in the body to get
cancer, not that cancer is funny but funny things happen around it. I think
talking about it, especially for men, was very helpful for me and the audience,
while still taking it seriously. Life is a bizarre accident and we’re lucky or
unlucky to be here. It’s lovely to be able to joke about it.
Balls aren’t this
important, masculine thing. They’re faintly ridiculous, slightly wonderful
things that do not signify masculinity, quite the opposite. They’re the weakest
thing you could ever possibly have on your body. Some view them as equalling
strength and manliness when they’re the exact opposite of what manliness is
perceived to be.
Richard
Herring tours the UK with his show Can I Have My Ball Back? from March
to July.
Banner: Richard Herring
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