Collings and Herrin (podcast)
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The Collings and Herrin podcast is a podcast produced by the broadcaster and writer Andrew Collins and the comedian and writer Richard Herring, which is made for and hosted by the British Comedy Guide. Herring has a habit of misspelling people's names for comic effect - for example he calls the boss of the Virgin group Richard Branston - and it is for this reason that the podcast is named in the way it is.
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[edit] Content
The content is based mainly on an analysis and critique of the week's media coverage. It is light in tone, but often veers into very dark humorous digressions. The podcast had its inception in Andrew Collins' BBC 6 Music radio show. Collins was a standard radio DJ and asked the comic Richard Herring to come in and give a short skit based on the week's news. The reviews often ended in both of them corpsing, and they both seemed to enjoy it. Both participants have mentioned that they felt constrained by the BBC guidelines and wanted to produce a darker, more humorous and longer segment, hence the podcast.
During the podcast, Andrew Collins makes a point of stating that Richard Herring is his colleague, not his friend, and has stated this on more than one occasion.
[edit] People
Andrew Collins (born March 4, 1965, Northampton) is an English journalist, scriptwriter and broadcaster. Collins started writing for New Musical Express in 1989, subsequently taking up editorship of Q in 1995. In 1998, he published his first book, Still Suitable for Miners, an authorised biography of the singer/songwriter Billy Bragg
He became a presenter on BBC 6 Music in 2002, fronting the weekday Teatime slot from 4-7pm until April 2005, when he took over the 6 Music Chart (4-6pm on Saturdays) and a Sunday afternoon show (2-5pm), with a mix of music and guests, notably the comedian Richard Herring. He worked until the end of March 2007, when Collins stopped doing these two regular shows and effectively left BBC 6 Music, having clocked up five solid years with the station.
Collins is also film editor for the Radio Times, and a contributing editor to The Radio Times Guide To Films. He is perhaps best known for his three volumes of autobiography, humorous accounts of "growing up normal" in 1970s Northampton, struggling with art school in London in the '80s, and forging a media career in the 1980s and 1990s: Where Did It All Go Right? (2003) (a Sunday Times bestseller), Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (2004), and That's Me in the Corner, which draws its title from a line from the REM song "Losing My Religion", published in May 2007.
Richard Herring is a comedian and writer. He is arguably 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.
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.
In January 2007 Richard's live stand-up show Someone Likes Yoghurt was filmed in Cardiff and released on DVD on May 16th by the independent distributor Go Faster Stripe. In June 2007, Herring's new comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends was broadcast.
[edit] Inception
Herring and Collins each maintain a blog. Collins' blog tends to focus on current affairs, reviews of cinema, tv and books; and his career. Herring's blog by contrast is a more darkly humorous version of his personal life. He tends to focus on tragic or mundane events in his own life. Both writers have stated they have read each other's blogs.
Herring and Collins have worked together on a number of occasions, such as on the now defunct BBC 6 Music show that Collins presented. They have also worked together on a BBC Radio 4 comedy show called Banter which relied mainly on jokey banter between comics, with Collins providing a measure of decorum as host. Collins has written on his blog about feeling insecure as a comedian as he is a writer and broadcaster by training, while Herring is a professional comedian.
The idea for the podcast was first mooted publicly on Collins blog on the 14th January 2008. This led to a large number of comments from readers in support of the idea. [1]
[edit] Self description
Andrew Collins and Richard herring describe their work as follows: a "sideways look at the news. Our fervent wish is to recreate our now legendary news reviews from Andrew's now-defunct BBC 6 Music show, except without the indie records interrupting us, and without the need to temper the content for fear of offending a Sunday afternoon radio audience". The table below includes their own comments on their podcast along with links to the news stories in question.
| # | Date | Length | Overview |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | February 1, 2008 | 43 min | In their first podcast, "recorded with the in-built mic on Richard's laptop because our expensive microphones didn't work, we cover David Beckham, Britney Spears, the Woolworth's "Lolita"[2] range of children's bedroom furniture, the US election and much, much more." |
| 102 | February 15, 2008 | 51 min | Their second podcast covers "everything from feral thugs and Katie Price to the Beijing Olympics (well, not literally everything, obviously). Younger listeners should be aware that 40 minutes is our new watershed, after which we stop using polite euphemisms". |
| 103 | February 29, 2008 | 51 min | In their third pocast they "are forced to discuss Prince Harry in Afghanistan as it's the only story in all the newspapers[3]. Plus, capital punishment, Paris Hilton's kitten, Lemsip Max and the sweaty Cupid and Fate." |
| 104 | March 14, 2008 | 52 min | In their fourth podcast, they cover "everything from the Budget, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, old mens' noses and wheat to the McCartney divorce settlement [4]and the big question: whether we should do our podcast every week." |
| 105 | March 21, 2008 | 51 min | In their fifth podcast, the first to appear weekly, they cover "everything from our arch-rivals the Nuts Podcast, the paedo who landed, the sad death of Captain Birdseye and the sad split of Kym and Jack Ryder[5]. And wish the new Iraq a happy fifth birthday.[6]" |
| 106 | March 28, 2008 | 51 min | In their sixth podcast "either our second (or third) weekly podcast, we join the nation in Carla Bruni Mania[7], ask why the Sun won't publish the harmless slang word "nosh" and examine our own personas within the new double act. And get a free muffin." |
| 107 | 4th April, 2008 | 52 min | In our seventh podcast, Richard eats a gluten-free biscuit and threatens bran-related odours, and we cover everything from Robert Mugabe and Gary Rhodes to Nick Clegg and Britannia (boo hoo, she's going from our coins)[8]. |
| 108 | 11th April 2008 | 55 mins | Even though Richard is on holiday, the podcast continues! We talk about Ed Balls and the human-cow hybrid[9] and whether it's acceptable to talk about owls after a September 11th-style tragedy, and it's almost as if Richard is here. |
| 109 | 18th April 2008 | 55 mins | In our ninth podcast, we put the world to rights, albeit mainly the world of [[[Gordon Brown]]'s body language to the wronged Hillary Clinton, a BEFORE and AFTER spam email that we suspect is not wholly trustworthy, and the perils of taking Oasis and Lucozade onto a plane for perfectly innocent reasons[10]. One of us is a left wing goody two shoes, but which one? |
| 110 | April, 2008 | 54 min | In our tenth anniversary podcast, we wonder how "sensational" Alan Levy's memoir[11] is going to get on Tuesday, what makes Austrians put people in cellars[12], why on earth would Trinny and Susannah go naked for publicity and what if Lembit Opik actually married both Cheeky Girls?
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Herring has stated he is "delighted to see that we've got a Wikipedia entry for the podcast now, though as I say in podcast 5 slightly bemused and amused that it picks up on Collings repeatedly calling me his colleague rather than his friend (though that might be even more true after this particular entry). It's also quite funny that when the compiler of the entry goes to list the "People" involved he actually only writes about Collings. Though I tried to persuade Andrew that this was due to me being so well known already that any description was unnecessary. "[13]
[edit] Relationship
A running joke has now started between the two about the fact that they are colleagues and not friends. This started when Herring made reference to the Wikipedia page in pocast 5 stating he was "slightly bemused and amused that it picks up on Collins repeatedly calling me his colleague rather than his friend" [14]. Both Andrew Collins and Herring have now made repeated reference to their status as collegues, even when such a distinction is not needed. Collins has stated this in a number of blog entries, deliberately using phrases where the term 'colleague' isn't entirely appropriate eg "Way to go, colleague."[15]. Herring has mentioned this in his newsletters, where he makes a point of overexplaining their relationship, even when it isn't particularly relevant, stating the podcast is done in conjunction with "my old 6 Music colleague (he is not my friend) Andrew Collings"[16]
Herring expanded still further on this running joke in a May 2008 blog entry: "If I had room for another friend in my hectic social life I might upgrade him from my colleague. But I haven't. So my colleague he remains. To be honest he's not quite mature or cool enough to hang around with me in real life."[17]
It has been suggested that the physical closeness of the two men, alone, in a house together, rather that in a working environment such as a studio was what prompted Collins to make clear the distinction between friendship and working relationship. It is interesting that they make reference to this relationshp so frequently when other double acts they have been involved in it was not so openly stated. Collins double act with Stuart Maconie was always based on seeming bonhomie and there was never any distinction as to whether or not they were friends or simply workmates. A further facet of their relationship is that both read one another's diareies every day as they both write a blog, and they have both commented on the degree of obsession that such a relationship seems to involve.
[edit] Links
- Richard Herring's website [18]
- Andrew Collins' website [19]
- Richard Herring's blog[20]
- The Podcast itself [21]
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