Richard Herring's Leicester Square Podcast Thread 2017 + Edition

[McFlymo]

Fucking hell that Olga Koch one was hard work.

I imagine she might be decent at comedy and have some good stuff online (I'll maybe look, later) but that was quite awful. Managed to have it on in the background for about 30 minutes I think.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Fucking hell that Olga Koch one was hard work.

I imagine she might be decent at comedy and have some good stuff online (I'll maybe look, later) but that was quite awful. Managed to have it on in the background for about 30 minutes I think.

I saw her last show If/Then and really enjoyed it, and am a big fan of hers in general, but I've watched 20 minutes of it so far and am really struggling with it too, there's way too much Rasputin talk and the audience are oddly muted as well.

[Satchmo Distel]

Not seen it but is the gist that Herring can only connect with the culture of her her country of birth via some guy who died over a century ago?

[Old Gold Tooth]

I imagine he's just talking about his failed play again.

[Mango Chimes]

He wrote a play about Rasputin. It lost him £40,000. He chose Rasputin as his specialist subject on Mastermind, and got the highest score ever. But he lost, because a woman from Antiques Roadshow chose antiques!

Stewart Lee rubbed him with a puppet that his grandfather made. Keith Allen took away a crash mat. He had a fight with a teacher in Liverpool.

These are a few of my favourite things.

[sutin]

He wrote a play about Rasputin. It lost him £40,000. He chose Rasputin as his specialist subject on Mastermind, and got the highest score ever. But he lost, because a woman from Antiques Roadshow chose antiques!

Stewart Lee rubbed him with a puppet that his grandfather made. Keith Allen took away a crash mat. He had a fight with a teacher in Liverpool.

These are a few of my favourite things.

Throw in a line about how he steals pick 'n' mix from service stations and used to date Julia Sawalha.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Someone broke a cupboard in Edinburgh once.

[magval]

Why are yiz listening if you don't like him?! Is this the most negative thread on the forum like?

The Linehan thread is massive because he's a cunt who keeps acting the cunt. This thread? Herring is releasing a podcast that people seem to hate but keep listening to. Don't get it at all.

[Mango Chimes]

I do like him. And I'm not listening.

I only dip in and out nowadays, when there's someone I've heard of and/or care about on, but I've no ill will.

[Jittlebags]

Why are yiz listening if you don't like him?! Is this the most negative thread on the forum like?

They do that about Andy in the Athletico threads as well.

[magval]

Aaahhhh, but they're listening to Mince for Bob. What's the excuse in here?

[Ferris]

I like all of Rich's stupid shit callbacks that intentionally ruin the flow. The self-sabotage is very funny (in theory, I also don't listen to more than 1 in 10 when there's someone I like on).

The mystery of the Edinburgh smashed cupboard is very funny as a repeated shit callback.

[paruses]

 

Aaahhhh, but they're listening to Mince for Bob. What's the excuse in here?

For me it's like bitching about a mutual friend who you like but who frustrates you all.

I like RH and am glad and grateful he produces these things. I just wish that he would remove himself a bit more from the interviews with people he's not mates with. Even Frank Skinner who mainly seems like Diana Ross dancing with a very young Michael Jackson in that clip seems to be able to blend the other person into his schtick rather than it a jarring like a meet between two people at a party.

[paruses]

I like all of Rich's stupid shit callbacks that intentionally ruin the flow. The self-sabotage is very funny (in theory, I also don't listen to more than 1 in 10 when there's someone I like on).

The mystery of the Edinburgh smashed cupboard is very funny as a repeated shit callback.

I quite like them but he loses confidence in them sometimes and it baffles guests sometimes to the detriment of the interview.

I have always hated the emergency questions. Every single one of them.

[Ferris]

I quite like them but he loses confidence in them sometimes and it baffles guests sometimes to the detriment of the interview.

I have always hated the emergency questions. Every single one of them.

In a way, that makes them more successful at sabotaging everything.

...yeah nah I agree they don't always work but that's alright. Good on ya Rich for churning out all this stuff for free (though of course I'm one of the cool kids who pays a pound a month)

[lankyguy95]

If he just got his mates on or people he knows, it might be my favourite podcast. When it requires a little more formality or he has a guest who isn't in the spirit of it - and this is a lot of the newer breed of comics - he can't interview to save his life.

[bgmnts]

Aaahhhh, but they're listening to Mince for Bob. What's the excuse in here?

The guests he has on the show?

[Small Man Big Horse]

I have always hated the emergency questions. Every single one of them.

Likewise. There's been the odd skilled comic who's come up with a decent response but most of the time they make me groan an enormous amount. And that new one about what piece of artwork would you take from a museum is quite possibly the worst yet, and no one has managed an interesting response so far.

[Satchmo Distel]

Why did he make a Twitch stream of him clearing some stones? Just seems like desolation.

[olliebean]

Why did he make a Twitch stream of him clearing some stones? Just seems like desolation.

He thinks he's being some Andy Kaufman-esque anti-comedy genius. Or possibly, he's playing the part of someone who thinks he's doing genius-level anti-comedy, but actually it's just shit, and that's the brilliantly ironic joke (that he thinks he's making).

Actually I think he knows it's shit and just enjoys the fact that a select bunch of his fans who also know it's shit seem to enjoy ironically pretending it's genius.

[easytarget]

Aaahhhh, but they're listening to Mince for Bob. What's the excuse in here?

Sometimes he accidentally reveals new more information about Stewart Lee.

Also - he used to be great, and the podcasts have moments of brilliance, but they're frustratingly surrounded by shit: emergency questions, stupid, repetitive call backs, petty boring stories about Mastermind and Pointless. So they're perfect for crazy long threads like this.

[Cardenio I]

He's on the latest episode of Off Menu, wherein he refuses to actually engage with the premise of the show in favour of shoehornibg in the same 5 things he's been talking about for the last decade. As a "starter" he picks Kettle Chips from the 90s and Kettle Chips from now so he can compare them, cos he swears they used to be better! It's only about ten minutes in when Ed Gamble asks "Richard, did you beg us to come on our podcast just so you could recycle material from your own podcast?"

[DrGreggles]

The Roll of Honour:
Bernie "One Joke" Clifton
Norman "Two Jokes" Collier
Richard "Five Jokes" Herring

[magval]

His new show is available on Go Faster Stripe's site for pay-what-you-want donations. Average price is about seven quid. I don't think I've ever watched a full Herring standup set. Love his sketches but his live stuff leaves me cold.

[Wayman C. McCreery]

His new show is available on Go Faster Stripe's site for pay-what-you-want donations. Average price is about seven quid. I don't think I've ever watched a full Herring standup set. Love his sketches but his live stuff leaves me cold.

He's done a few shows since then. That one was from 2013 when the decline started. But Christ on a Bike: The Second Coming and then What Is Love, Anyway? from 2010 and 2011 respectively were both brilliant. Hitler Moustache was good too.

I can't really say "it feels like he can't be bothered any more" when he seems to spend every waking minute making content, but he's definitely found his comfort zone. If people will pay £20 to see him interview Barbara Nice then why would he bother writing, previewing and touring a 90-minute show every year?

[DrGreggles]

The Headmaster's Son was a good Herring show too.

[Pink Gregory]

I generally have liked Richard's standup, I find him a bit tiring now after burning out on RHLSTP and just sort of not liking him any more; I think the thing that I find that puts me off is that his standup can be performed very similarly to how it's written, if that makes sense.  It seems much more like a monologue than standup.  Which is fine but it's not really for me any more.

Saw Oh Frig I'm 50 live and quite enjoyed it, though following RHLSTP at the time you basically hear all of the constituent parts of the show beforehand.

[Mobbd]

His new show is available on Go Faster Stripe's site for pay-what-you-want donations. Average price is about seven quid. I don't think I've ever watched a full Herring standup set. Love his sketches but his live stuff leaves me cold.

Hmm. I don't like what I think of as his "philosophical shows." We're All Going to Die; What is Love Anyway; Happy Now. They all sit in the same bin. They're too low on jokes and full of hopeless musing around emotional themes that we all got out of the way when we were 12. They're not terrible or anything but I don't like 'em.

What I do like are his playful, simpler "concept album" shows with a solid idea at their core. Hitler Mustache; Talking Cock; Christ on a Bike; Headmaster's Son; Oh Fuck I'm 40.

Actually, Hitler Mustache is on the margin of what makes (to my mind) a good Herring show and a bad one. The original idea and central conceit is playful and hilarious. "What if I had a Hitler mustache. No, but really. Oh Christ, I'm actually doing it" is very funny and I remember being in stitches when the ad-libbed the concept on Collings and Herrin. But all the shit about voting and stopping the BNP is just terrible. He over-complicates a simple idea with tacked-on rubbish that he thinks elevates the show into "a thinker" (it doesn't) or that said rubbish constitutes added value (it doesn't). I'd rather he did the good Mustache stuff for 20-30 mins and wrapped other comedy material (not pointless 'philosophical' noise) around that setpiece - like he did with Someone Likes Yoghurt.

His best show in years was Lord of the Dance Settee (again, playful and simple) and Is Best (because it's literally his greatest hits).

Like a lot of people on this forum, I've been following Herring for years. Saw the original Christ on a Bike show in 2001 and just about everything since (and, tellingly, the Second Comings he's done were less good than the originals simply because they suffer from the kind of "waffle bloat" I just described re: Hitler Mustache). But it's like the law of variable rewards or something. I do love him and he's a trier but he so often zigs when he should zag. Which is fine, of course, but not when also adopting a slightly-cunty lofty stance about being the comedy expert while being completely unaware of his own hack or scruffy or lazy thinking.

Bless him. He's our generation's Bobby Ball.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've finished the Koch one now and think it may well be the worst I've made it through to the end of, and I don't blame Richard either, he tries to get her to talk about her past but it seems like she's reluctant to do so, to give away too much of the material from her previous shows. As mentioned above I've seen her live and think she's a great comic, but either she just (repeatedly) froze up here, or just isn't good on podcasts, but it's definitely one of the most painful live appearances I think I've ever seen.

[olliebean]

I think the trouble with him putting out so much free stuff - especially when he doesn't have a massive trove of anecdotes to draw on - is that the need to generate so much material has got him into the habit of not editing it down to cut out the chaff, leading to the "waffle bloat" that Mobbd describes above.