Richard Herring

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Richard Herring performing his show Someone Likes Yoghurt at the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh, during the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Richard Keith Herring (born July 12, 1967) is a British comedian and writer formerly best known as part of Lee and Herring, a double act with Stewart Lee. Other notable works include the radio series, That Was Then, This Is Now and various live shows including the acclaimed Talking Cock and the resulting book of the same name.

Herring was born in Yorkshire but grew up in Cheddar, Somerset, and was educated at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, where he wrote and performed for a comic troupe known as the Seven Raymonds as well as the Fringe favourites the Oxford Revue.

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 came up with the initial concept for the character Alan Partridge. In 1992 and 1993, they wrote and performed Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World for 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, together with Stewart Lee as Carey and Colin Baker as the Doctor.

Since cordially ending his informal partnership with Stewart Lee, Herring has written and performed thought-provoking one-man shows to critical acclaim. Most noteworthy of these shows was Talking Cock – released as a book in 2003 – which The Guardian described as "man's answer to The Vagina Monologues." 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.

Richard co-wrote and presented the history based sketch show That Was Then, This Is Now (Or TWTTIN), a 6 part series produced for Radio 2. A second series was commissioned and aired in September and October 2006. On the broadcast of 2nd September, he urged listeners to edit Wikipedia's Mother Teresa entry to suggest that she grew up with the middle name "Gonk". It took a whole 3 months before someone carried out his dastardly plan,^[1] although his own page had been edited in the same manner within days of the broadcast.^[2]

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.

On 25 November 2002 Herring started his blog Warming Up as a way to overcome writer's block. He has kept the blog updated regularly ever since and as of 1st April 2007 has not missed a single day. It's estimated that he has a regular readership of over 3000. Some of the ideas from Warming Up were used in his 2005 Edinburgh show Someone Likes Yoghurt and in his 2006 Edinburgh show ménage à un.

In 2005 he presented a chat show called Heads Up with Richard Herring on Pokerzone (Sky channel 843) in which he interviewed professional poker players and celebrities about their careers and their love of the game. There were ten episodes in total.

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

In January 2007 Richard's live stand-up show Someone Likes Yoghurt was filmed in Cardiff for DVD release. It will be released later this year. A recording of an earlier show, The 12 Tasks of Hercules Terrace, was released on 5 March 2007. Richard will return to Cardiff in June to film his third DVD.

In February 2007, filming began on Herring's new comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends. As well as writing the script, Richard also plays one of the characters alongside Gordon Kennedy, Claire Skinner, Rebecca Front, Sarah-Jane Potts, Robert Daws, Anton Rogers and Julia McKenzie.^[3]^[4] The show will be broadcast on ITV1 on 30th April 2007.

[edit] Personal Life

Beyond saying he is often taken by actresses, Herring generally keeps quiet about his love life. One of the few exceptions to this is his former relationship with the actress Julia Sawalha. According to the Telegraph:

'So taken was he that the Oxford-educated stand-up comedian even set up a shrine to her on Fist of Fun, the television programme he wrote and acted in with Stewart Lee. "My ideal woman has the head of Julia Sawalha attached to the body of Julia Sawalha," went the running gag.' ^[5]