Richard Herring

Richard Herring is one of the UK's most prolific comedians. He took the Edinburgh Festival 2011 by storm with his new show What Is Love, Anyway? and begins a tour of the show this October. In May this year, Richard finished touring the country with his critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe show, Christ on a Bike: The Second Coming.

Richard finished the latest series of his Chortle Award-winning and Sony-nominated audio podcast and sketch show As It Occurs To Me in Autumn 2010, his new book How Not To Grow Up was published in May and the DVD of his acclaimed stand up show Hitler Moustache was released in October. He also wrote and performed in the 2010 Radio 4 series Richard Herring's Objective.

Richard's recent TV appearances include Genius (BBC Two), Have I Got News For You (BBC One) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He currently co-hosts the Saturday morning breakfast show on BBC 6 Music with Andrew Collins and they continue to record their weekly Collings and Herring Podcast on a laptop in Rich's attic. The podcasts get up to 50,000 downloads per episode.

Richard has established himself as a leading playwright at Edinburgh, penning and appearing in several critically acclaimed plays including Punk's Not Dead, Excavating Rita and It's Not the End of the World. His one-man Edinburgh shows include Someone Likes Yoghurt, ménage a un and The Headmaster's Son. Richard's blog Warming Up has gained a cult following since he began writing it in November 2002 and has written an entry for every single day, well over 3000 consecutive entries.

As one half of the prolific comedy duo Lee & Herring, Richard Herring enjoyed phenomenal cult success as a writer and performer with shows such as Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World, Fist of Fun (BBC Radio 1/BBC Two) and This Morning with Richard Not Judy (BBC Two).

With Al Murray, Richard devised and wrote 37 episodes of the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please (Sky One/Paramount) for Al's alter ego The Pub Landlord. Richard also wrote and starred in the comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends (ITV1).

We asked Richard a few questions about his work, writing and the wonder of words:

1. Do you have any pre-gig rituals?
No. I usually like to have a bit of a quiet time to think, but sometimes I like to sing and dance in the wings. There's no set system and if you told me I had to go on stage right now I could do it without preparation.

2. What is your most embarrassing moment on a live stage?
I fell off stage at a gig in Tring whilst walking off at the end. It was dark and I didn't realise that the stage stopped where it did and fell into the wings like Superman and ended up with my legs sticking out for the audience to see. It hurt my pride. And also my knees.

3. Who would you most like to have a conversation with (dead or alive)?
I would love to have a chat with Jesus and find out what he was really about. I did a show called Christ on a Bike about trying to find the real historical Jesus, which is very difficult and a small amount of study shows how much his message was subverted and hijacked by his followers. I'd love to know what stuff he actually said and what he really thought and who he thought he was. Plus, I think it'd be interesting to see what he made of the modern world and all that has been done in his name. I think he'd be astonished and annoyed (not least because he thought the world was going to end in his lifetime).

4. If you could invent a word, what would it be and what would it mean?
I invent words all the time. I hate the word chillax, so I decided to invent a parody word meaning the same thing but using the other parts of the words chill and relax. It's "rilll"

5. What is your favourite line of dialogue?
The end of Some Like It Hot culminating in "Nobody's perfect!" is hard to beat.

6. If you could delete a word from the English dictionary, what would it be and why?
Chillax. Because it is only said by idiots.

7. If you were to write a poem/ book/ song about a person that frustrates you, who would it be?
I am most frustrated by myself and my own idiocy and hypocrisy. I write about it constantly. I haven't done a song yet though.

8. What would you most like to write about?
I am lucky in that I can write about anything I want. I generate nearly all my own work. I want to write a film about Felix Yusupov, one of the assassins of Rasputin.

9. What is your favourite phrase?
Judge not lest ye be judged. Everyone should live their life by that one. Especially Christians. But not many of them do, it seems.

10. Tell us something we don't know about you?
I don't keep many secrets, as anyone who's read my stuff would know. I am currently having the guttering at the front of my house replaced. You're the first to know. Happy now?