Richard Herring
08 April 2007
It’s a densely packed night at the Bath Comedy Cavern as UK comedian Richard Herring takes his accurately named one man show ‘ménage à un’ on a tour of Europe. In typical British style, half empty pitchers of lager provide a perfect accompaniment to the 39 year old and self confessed pessimist’s routine. An air of expectation and anticipation fuels resident compere Geoff’s lighthearted and brief interaction with the audience, seemingly unaware that the headline act aims to irritate as much as he entertains.
Infuriation aside, Herring’s set eludes traditional comic material in favour of more disgruntling and less socially acceptable topics and though he interacts sparingly (albeit lecherously) with the audience, his bond remains strong throughout the set even raising stifled hilarity when advocating consensual sex with the stigmata of Jesus: nevertheless stressing that rape would be a bad thing.
Herring’s gift of smiling confidently and laughing brashly at his own insight allows him to push the boundaries between obscenity and controversy further than many comedians on the circuit. His self deprecating style removes any suggestion of arrogance aside from demeaning less intellectual members of the audience, indicating a disdain for stupidity, ignorance, misuse of the emergency services, fighting fascism with fascism and constantly reminding the audience “I satirized you, with satire”.
Though his set raised many cheers and ripples of applause the biggest laughs arose from the brief moments of comedy gold in his banter with a heckling audience member who was christened ‘wolf-man’ and promptly told he’d be better off dead. Many audience members were left with a sore stomach and a guilty conscience to reflect upon his instance (shouldn’t this be insistence?) at not being Bernard Manning, with the realization that Richard Herring is perhaps a little too comfortable on stage.
Ellie Davies