Richard Herring

Richard Keith Herring (born 12 July 1967) is an English stand-up comedian and writer whose early work includes the comedy double act Lee and Herring (alongside Stewart Lee).

He is described by The British Theatre Guide as "one of the leading hidden masters of modern British comedy".

Towards the end of the double act, Herring also worked as a writer, producing four plays.

After Lee and Herring went their separate ways he co-wrote the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please, but quickly returned to performance with concept-driven one-person shows like Talking Cock, Hitler Moustache and Christ on a Bike as well as regular circuit stand-up.

Their television work included Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy, and they had been collaborating on stage and radio projects since the 1980s.

Lee and Herring wrote material for Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's On the Hour in 1991 and the duo contributed to the creation of the character that was to be Alan Partridge.

Between 1992 and 2000, Richard was half of the stand-up comedy double act with Stewart Lee.

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 in 1993, remaking it for television in 1995 and 1996.

They hosted a series on Radio 1 in 1994 and 1995, called Lee and Herring.

A final television partnership with Lee, This Morning With Richard Not Judy, ran for 18 episodes over two series was eventually cancelled "as a result of BBC management reshuffles".

Herring has written and performed in thirteen one-person shows, eleven of them consecutively.

A Herring show typically starts with a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, continues with an extensive UK tour and ends with a recorded performance for DVD.

For radio, Herring co-wrote and presented the history based sketch show That Was Then, This Is Now.

For television he wrote Al Murray's sitcom Time Gentlemen Please.

He also contributed to the third series of Little Britain as script editor.

He has maintained a daily blog called Warming Up without a break since 25 November 2002.

His blog is archived by the British Library for purposes of UK documentary heritage.

Richard Herring was born in Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire, and grew up in Cheddar, Somerset.

He is the youngest of three children.

He attended The Kings of Wessex School, where his father was the headmaster and maths teacher.

Herring has created thirteen of these stand-up shows since 2004, performing them for eleven consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with annual tours and a final performance recorded for DVD.

In 2005, he presented a chat show called Heads Up with Richard Herring on the Pokerzone channel, in which he interviewed professional poker players and celebrities about their careers and their love of the game.

There were 10 episodes in total.

The 2007 ITV comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends, which he wrote and also starred in, was based on his family.

Some of the same characters later featured in the Radio 4 series "Relativity".

Herring was a student at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he wrote and performed for a comedy troupe known as the Seven Raymonds as well as the Oxford Revue.

He attained a 2:1 in History.

In February 2007, filming began on Herring's comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends.

As well as writing the script, he also acted alongside Gordon Kennedy, Claire Skinner, Rebecca Front, Sarah-Jane Potts, Robert Daws, Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie.

The show was broadcast on ITV on 7 June 2007.

This later formed the basis of his 2008 stand-up show, The Headmaster's Son.

Herring’s mother was also a teacher.

In January 2008 he began the Collings and Herrin (sic) podcast with Andrew Collins.

Herring's 2008 stand-up set The Headmaster's Son earned four 5-star reviews and several 4-star reviews.

The set covers his experience growing up in The Kings of Wessex School in Somerset where his father worked as headmaster and how this may have been the origin of his fondness for telling puerile jokes.

They celebrated their two-year anniversary with a live "100th" podcast (it was actually the 105th recording) at the Leicester Square Theatre.

On 30 January 2010 the pair began a tenure of sitting in for Adam and Joe on BBC Radio 6 Music on Saturdays mornings, a slot they occupied for more than a year.

His 2016–17 show was a 'best of' tour, drawing from these shows.

Herring is recognised as a pioneer of comedy podcasting, initially with broadcaster Andrew Collins on The Collings and Herrin Podcast and subsequently with high-profile comedians and celebrities such as Dawn French, Michael Palin and Stephen Fry on Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast.