Picture from edcomfest.com
Richard Herring: The Headmaster’s Son
White Belly @ Smirnoff Underbelly, Saturday 16th August 7.30pm
Richard Herring is always a safe pair of hands at the Fringe, even if those hands are freakishly small, like those of a 9-year old girl.
It’s his 180th show and 700th year at the Fringe (probably) since he first ventured up with the Oxford Revue in the late ’80s, accompanied by his future comedy partner Stewart Lee, young eyes (probably) gleaming with hope for the future.
Now he’s 41 years old, overweight,* unmarried and frustrated by the progress of his career, and a seemingly genuine sense of regret at these factors has fuelled his stand-up for the last few years.
The other thing that fuels his stand-up is his whole-hearted desire to push the boundaries of good taste with fascinatingly elaborate diatribes about wanking off paedophiles, burning old people and the positive traits of Maxine Carr. When these tear an anguished howl of laughter from the audience, he grins like a schoolboy doing something he knows he shouldn’t.
This year’s show is largely about his time at school as the son of the titular headmaster (the wonderfully named T.K. Herring) and his attempt to work out whether he could blame both his failings and his choice of profession on this formative experience.
Herring is tremendously good value for money, a likeable performer who packs a lot of great material into an hour and rambles through it at speed.
Those of you who stalk him as I do may find bits of the material familiar. He uses his daily blog Warming Up to try out new ideas, while the increasingly wonderful Collings and Herrin Podcasts (with Andrew Collins) may have spoiled you to the novelty of seeing this nationally-known comedian in the flesh (edit: on reflection, the second half of that sentence is meaningless.)
(I think these podcasts deserve some discussion of their own at a later date.)
The stars of the aforementioned increasingly wonderful Collings and Herrin podcasts, Collings and Herrin. Andrew Colling's mum is a fucking idiot.
This is maybe Herring’s strongest show since I began stalking him a few years ago. Well worth a visit.
*Better now.
