Histor's Eye

[ajsmith2]

Anyone got the source for the Lee slagging Herring article? (Apologies for the morbid rubbernecking but have to admit I'm curious :/ )

On some days I genuinely think Histors Eye is the greatest thing in TV comedy 'histor' y. I can't think of anything more joyfully hilarious.

[TheBrownBottle]

Here you go - bit you're looking for is at the bottom

https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/other/1996-vs-2021/

[Pink Gregory]

"Rich worked very hard and was very conscientious but I don't think he had much of an ear for tonality or musicality and wasn't interested in learning from other practitioners or in finding out about areas of culture outside his immediate sphere, although I think that very insularity might have helped him to consolidate his podcaster character, which has proved an effective and lucrative way for him to maintain both his profile and his independence. I am the opposite. Maybe that was what was good about it. I am glad I had a second chance in life to do things I was happier with. I have been very lucky."

I'm finding it a bit hard to read a good slagging into that.  It reads as 'Richard and I are different comedians and we work in different ways, I wasn't particularly enamoured with the way Richard did things as a result, and that's probably why we stopped the double act.'

I was never under the impression that they were really close friends in the first place, and their disagreements over Avalon's management, the TMWRNJ dvd release and such put a fairly standard distance between them.  Are there really any other double acts around that no longer operate together anyway?  Newman and Baddiel?

[Ham Bap]

Cannon and Ball

[Ferris]

Here you go - bit you're looking for is at the bottom

https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/other/1996-vs-2021/

Ted Chippington, disliking Avalon, mentioning comedians he likes from the '90s (while taking a few pops at people from the scene he doesn't like), maintaining the illusion that he regularly flirts with failure in the midst of monster sellout tours, some jabs at Rich while fluffing his own ego.

It's fucking Stewart Lee bingo.

For an interview ostensibly recorded across the decades, it's remarkable how little has changed. He should probably keep quiet on the music stuff too - the collab with Asian Dub Foundation was "drunk uncle at a wedding" stuff[nb]and while doing a routine from 12 years ago, as if to prove my point of not much changing[/nb] and I say that as a massive fan of basically everything Stew has done.

Mind you he published it on his own website - it's not like he's going around forcing these opinions on people so fair enough I suppose.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Forcing, like forcing eggs down someone's gullet, which is

Spoiler alert

how Histor finally kills Pliny

[close]

[stonkers]

He should probably keep quiet on the music stuff too - the collab with Asian Dub Foundation was "drunk uncle at a wedding" stuff[nb]and while doing a routine from 12 years ago, as if to prove my point of not much changing[/nb] and I say that as a massive fan of basically everything Stew has done.

Yep, big fan of Stew's but under no circumstances do I need to engage with his middle aged dad music stuff.

[Replies From View]

"Rich worked very hard and was very conscientious but I don't think he had much of an ear for tonality or musicality and wasn't interested in learning from other practitioners or in finding out about areas of culture outside his immediate sphere, although I think that very insularity might have helped him to consolidate his podcaster character, which has proved an effective and lucrative way for him to maintain both his profile and his independence. I am the opposite. Maybe that was what was good about it. I am glad I had a second chance in life to do things I was happier with. I have been very lucky."

I'm finding it a bit hard to read a good slagging into that.  It reads as 'Richard and I are different comedians and we work in different ways, I wasn't particularly enamoured with the way Richard did things as a result, and that's probably why we stopped the double act.'

I was never under the impression that they were really close friends in the first place, and their disagreements over Avalon's management, the TMWRNJ dvd release and such put a fairly standard distance between them.  Are there really any other double acts around that no longer operate together anyway?  Newman and Baddiel?

It's not really a good slagging, but don't miss this:

"It seems hard to imagine that we did work together now, given that I haven't really spoken to Richard, aside from during his podcasts when he would ask me to remember things he had done, this century. I understand from his appearances on podcasts that he thinks I didn't really contribute anything to the double act anyway so I don't know how or why it worked. I know I wrote some of the material as it was based on my personal experience, opinions, interests, and sad memories of my own family, but he may be right. Certainly my individual popularity and success as a stand-up initially lead to us both being signed by Avalon, but I am not sure that was a very good result for either of us in the end anyway."



Yes they've obviously merely grown apart over time, but the evidence is that any sense of deep-friendship-behind-the-personas we might perceive between them on RHLSTP, for example, probably isn't there.

I get the feeling Richard Herring has a co-dependency thing going on and Lee is aware of it and doesn't want to feed into it.

[dissolute ocelot]

How long before we get a film about Lee and Herring: the secret inside story. The feuds, the resentments, the chair-throwing. Pick any 2 Inbetweeners to star in it, throw it up on some obscure streaming service, and it's £50 in the bank for sure. Or better yet, do it with puppets.

[Thursday]

Calling his podcast "a lucrative way for him to maintain both his profile and his independence." Is something that Lee might consider an insult when others wouldn't.

[thr0b]

Aye, I wouldn't go as far as to say Lee's comments on Herring are malicious, but they're not pleasant, perhaps even arrogant. They wanted different things from their careers, and they got them.

"I haven't really spoken to Richard, aside from during his podcasts when he would ask me to remember things he had done"

That's quite cunty. If you get Lee on a Herring podcast, the audience want that nostalgia trip - if you don't want to go on that trip, don't accept the invite, because even if you ask to not talk about the old days before going on, you're short-changing the audience who want it.

[jamiefairlie]

Back to 'the eye', I truly love the way it just gradually descends into utter insanity over the weeks, ending up eating itself with absurdity, it's fantastic.

[non capisco]

The bits where they deliberately slip out of character are great.

Histor: It's like the TV programme 'The X Files'.
Pliny: The EGGS files!
Rich: Oh, I never expected that one.
Stew: Sorry, have you got a problem?

[lazyhour]

He should probably keep quiet on the music stuff too - the collab with Asian Dub Foundation was "drunk uncle at a wedding" stuff

I may be misremembering, but wasn't that actually less of a collaboration, and more ADF sampling an old Stew routine and then him gamely agreeing to appear in the video?

Game-ly like game which can mean bird!

[McChesney Duntz]

I may be misremembering, but wasn't that actually less of a collaboration, and more ADF sampling an old Stew routine and then him gamely agreeing to appear in the video?

That was my understanding, yeah. (As far as his other, actual musical collabs go, I happened to really like the album he did with the Exeter-based free jazz trio capri-batterie a couple years back. But I'm certain that approximately 92% of the sentient beings in the rest of the world would not share that assessment.)

[Replies From View]

Aye, I wouldn't go as far as to say Lee's comments on Herring are malicious, but they're not pleasant, perhaps even arrogant. They wanted different things from their careers, and they got them.

"I haven't really spoken to Richard, aside from during his podcasts when he would ask me to remember things he had done"

That's quite cunty. If you get Lee on a Herring podcast, the audience want that nostalgia trip - if you don't want to go on that trip, don't accept the invite, because even if you ask to not talk about the old days before going on, you're short-changing the audience who want it.

He's not saying it's rubbish to be invited onto Richard's podcast, with all the nostalgia that people might hope for - he's pointing out that Richard is self-absorbed, and he is.

[pigamus]

There was an episode of Collings and Herrin where he was telling an anecdote about Stu, and suddenly blurted out, 'God I miss working with him.' I found it really sad and moving. Stu just outgrew him didn't he?

[Replies From View]

The bits where they deliberately slip out of character are great.

Histor: It's like the TV programme 'The X Files'.
Pliny: The EGGS files!
Rich: Oh, I never expected that one.
Stew: Sorry, have you got a problem?

These are my least favourite bits, unfortunately.  I prefer it where they manage to hold it together because this is how the children's programme will go out, so the annoyance stays only slightly tangible in Histor's voice.

When Rich shows his own face and the puppet dangles around, it stops making sense to me as an episode that wouldn't have been refilmed before broadcast.

Fussy, I know.

[Captain Z]

I may be misremembering, but wasn't that actually less of a collaboration, and more ADF sampling an old Stew routine and then him gamely agreeing to appear in the video?

That's exactly what it was, and the video/single appeared to be released largely as two fingers up to the racists that were flooding ADF/Stew with abuse. The animosity towards it here continues to baffle me.

[DrGreggles]

There was an episode of Collings and Herrin where he was telling an anecdote about Stu, and suddenly blurted out, 'God I miss working with him.' I found it really sad and moving. Stu just outgrew him didn't he?

Just a jokey dig at Collings, no?

[Replies From View]

There was an episode of Collings and Herrin where he was telling an anecdote about Stu, and suddenly blurted out, 'God I miss working with him.' I found it really sad and moving. Stu just outgrew him didn't he?

I remember that too, but I took it as his then-new persona mocking Collings rather than holding Lee in high esteem.  An "I used to be in a proper double-act," kind of thing.

[Replies From View]

Just a jokey dig at Collings, no?

Pipped me to it.  Yeah.


Edit:  goddamnit, why this "it's been less than 25 seconds since your last post" obstacle.  Keeps recurring when it's clearly been several minutes sometimes.  Drives me up the cacking bend.

[non capisco]

Fussy, I know.

No, I get you. The short episode where Rich actually takes off the puppet and berates Stew/Pliny doesn't quite work for exactly the reasons you say. I do really like the slips into their normal voices, sometimes with the puppets' mouths still flapping about. And the odd occasion where Pliny suddenly takes the liberal/leftist position in Stew's normal voice, I seem to remember there was more of that on the original Radio 1 sketches.

[Replies From View]

I've always found something weird about the way Lee and Herring's usual roles are swapped in Histor's Eye.  I wonder why they chose to have Herring as Histor and Lee as Pliny, since it means that - pretty much out of nowhere - Lee is the one suddenly dicking about and ruining it.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I've always found something weird about the way Lee and Herring's usual roles are swapped in Histor's Eye.  I wonder why they chose to have Herring as Histor and Lee as Pliny, since it means that - pretty much out of nowhere - Lee is the one suddenly dicking about and ruining it.

It confounded your expectations and thence the humour arose.

[Replies From View]

It confounded your expectations and thence the humour arose.

It doesn't really do this - it kind of breaks my autistic reading of the world of the show, and bugs me a bit.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

It - it was a reference.

[Replies From View]

It - it was a reference.

I know.  But it was also suggesting the obvious reason for why Lee and Herring made that choice.

[non capisco]

The status positions were swapped on The Ian News on Fist Of Fun as well which is essentially the human Histor's Eye I suppose. I think it may have been because that slightly strangulated higher pitched voice Lee does (which he still employs all the time in his standup when voicing an "idiot" counterargument in lieu of a double act partner, and presumably did in his solo standup back then) works so perfectly for Pliny perf-EGG-ctly for Plin-wee like a bird's wee

[Replies From View]

I suspect it also comes down to who had the main idea / writing for any given sketch.  In one of the Stewart Lee RHLSTPs Herring calls Histor's Eye "the best thing you ever did" and says he should bring it back.  Which suggests that Lee wrote it and simply had himself in mind for Pliny in the process.