| History Archive
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2002 - 2005
2002 Continued...
In the last couple of months of the year I began work on the Talking Cock book and also did an occasional gig. Most notable of these was probably an appearance at the Theo Fennel Christmas party. See Warming Up, December 20th for details.
Stew and me also did a signing for our Doctor Who appearance and met Graeme Garden. See Warming Up, Sat 14th December.
I also set up the website that you are reading now, which went on line in the early weeks of 2003.
2003
For the first five months of the year I spent most of my time either gigging with Talking Cock or writing the book version.
I toured the UK between January and March and again in May. During these dates I appeared at the Battersea Arts Centre in a short season called "Tickle Your Head". The fact that three of my favourite comics (Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery and John Hegley) were the other participants in the mini-festival meant I was amongst good company.The second gig at Battersea was one of the best on the tour. You can read about some of my experiences on the road in Warming Up.
In February "Time Gentlemen Please" was nominated for a Broadcast Award for Best Multichannel Programme. Unfortunately we didn't win, but look I got given this nice certificate, which more than makes up for the two years of hard work I put into the series! The Paramount Channel bought the repeat rights to TGP and so those of you who missed it can catch it on weekdays on that Channel. Apparently the ratings have been pretty good.
In March I flew out to Melbourne to appear at the Comedy Festival for the second year running. I was booked into the Capitol Theatre, which is a great venue, but it has 600 seats. Unfortunately I never got more than a couple of hundred people in and so although the press was good the run felt like a bit of a disappointment. I worked out that I failed to sell over 10,000 tickets which must be some kind of Festival record. Had I been in a 150 seater venue like last year I think it would have felt like a success. I had great fun in Australia though and am glad I went. See Warming Up March-April for more details.
While I was in Australia I appeared on "Enough Rope" hosted by Andrew Denton. A transcript of the interview can be seen here.
While I was in Australia, Servants was broadcast in the UK. I didn't see it, but I did get mentioned in a few of the reviews. The series did not do very well in the ratings due to being up against "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" and has not been recommissioned.
I was asked to take part in the News Quiz on Radio 4 in May, but did not acquit myself very well. See Warming up for the 22nd May.
Although they had said before that there was a possibility of me coming on again in July, no-one mentioned that again after the performance!
In June I continued writing my film "I Don't Know Who I Did Last Summer". Although I was meant to finish it by the end of the month, I got nowhere near and am over a year behind the original deadline for the completion of the project.
At the end of July I decided that I would stop working on my film script. It wasn't getting anywhere and it was making me unhappy and I needed some time off.
I did not anticipate that I would take the rest of the year off, though I practically did.
In the autumn I attended the premieres of four European versions of Talking Cock in Norway, Finland, Italy and Belgium. My thoughts on these shows are well documented in Warming Up and there are some pictures and publicity materials in the download section. There was also a production in Germany which I was unable to attend.
In October, I played the part of a strange doctor in a short film called "The Last 7 Days of Quont". I have no details about where or when this might get shown.
My book, "Talking Cock" also came out in October, to little media interest. It was very gratifying to see it on the shelves (though there seemed to be confusion amongst booksellers about which section to put it in) and I have had a lot of positive feedback from people who have read it.
I also did a few gigs around the country, which were all enjoyable. Even Carlisle.
2004
This year was dominated by my Herculean adventures... and also seemed to feature quite a bit of Emma Kennedy.
In January and February I took part in a BBC Reality TV show called "The Other Boat Race" in which a team of "celebrities" (Grub Smith, anyone?) who went to Oxford or Cambridge University were trained to row by Olympic athletes and then had to race against each other. I had initially been very dubious about the idea as I hate reality TV, don't see myself as a celebrity (which is lucky cos no-one else does either) and have always hated rowing and all rowers. However, Emma was taking part too and persuaded me to give it a go and I am delighted I did as it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. You can read about it in some detail in Warming Up, but suffice to say that the Oxford crew who I was rowing for had an unexpected and beautiful victory.
Much of the rest of the early part of the year was taken up with performing the other 11 tasks that would go to make up my new Edinburgh show "The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace". I ran a Marathon (again Emma Kennedy tagged along), tried to kill the Loch Ness Monster, dated 50 women in 50 consecutive days (including Emma Kennedy), did a parachute jump, cleaned out an elephant enclosure, ran through the streets of Pamplona in a pair of back to front women's underpants, walked on fire, attempted to steal the bra of renowned feminist Germaine Greer, tried to get a task from the Manager of Argos, had a go at beating my nephew at tennis and completed the tedious game CNPS. See Warming Up and CNPS rules for more details.
I was writing the show right up to the last minute and after some sloppy previews in the south, headed to Edinburgh in August for the official premiere. I had a slightly disappointing time with the show, mainly because the venue I was at was failing to bring in the crowds and the hour slot was not long enough to tell the story in sufficient detail, but I got good reviews and a lot of positive feedback (see downloads). The 90 minute shows I did in the second half of the year were a lot more satisfying. I have begun to write a book of my adventures, though as of the end of 2004 I do not have a publisher for it.
The early part of the year also saw me touring for the last few performances of "Talking Cock". I was surprised to find when it was all over that I was not sick of doing it. In fact I might consider doing it again at some point. But the foreign productions of the show continued to be put on. In January I popped over to Paris to see Michel Leeb perform "Qu'est-ce que sexe?" This was a highly enjoyable and professional production and went on to sell out a 600 seater venue for several months, which was lucky for me as it meant I got a few nice royalty cheques to tide me over! The Finnish production which I had also enjoyed continued to play this year as well. In September I headed out to Copenhagen to see Gordon Kennedy performing the Danish version of the show. An Icelandic translation is also in production.
In February I recorded a pilot radio show called "That Was Then, This Is Now", which also featured Emma Kennedy. It was essentially a sketch show which looked at events that happened that week in history. It also featured Dan Tetsell, Danny Robbins, Christian Riley and a pop band (Simon Greenall was in the pilot too). This went to series in October on Radio 2 and despite some problems with the Radio 2 censors and the usual stresses of writing at the last minute, turned out to be a lot of fun. Again, no news on a second series by the end of 2004.
This year also saw guest appearances on Radio 4's "We've Been Here Before" (see Warming Up 17th June) BBC4's "Mind Games" (see Warming Up 30th September) and I also recorded links for Radio 7's Comedy Controller (see Warming Up 14th December), though this won't be broadcast until the Spring of 2005. I also had a small acting role in a film called "Manilla Envelopes" (see Warming Up November 5th) and auditions for Channel 4's "Peep Show" and ITV's "The Brief", but I didn't get either of those jobs!
On 10th July I ran a mile (twice) for Sports Relief with Emma Kennedy (see Warming Up).
Warming Up celebrated its second birthday (I still haven't missed a day since it started) and is read by about 1000 people a day. I wrote a radio script based on the early entries, but am waiting to find out if Radio 4 want to produce it. I also had a meeting with Armando Iannucci and may be working on a sit-com in 2005 with him.
After a few successful ten minute spots in Edinburgh I decided I would give stand-up comedy in clubs another whirl (after a 13 year lay off). I had a handful of gigs, both good and not so good, the first and best was at Happy Mondays in New Cross (see Warming Up 18th October) and the most noteworthy of which took place in Zagreb in Croatia (see Warming Up 9th/13th December). I plan to do significantly more in the New Year.
2005
Throughout 2005 I gigged extensively around the UK, both with the Hercules show and with stand up gigs. After a shaky start in the autumn of last year I found my feet in the clubs and started to take risks and enjoy what I was doing. In January I did the first live version of the yoghurt routine that would form the basis of my Edinburgh show. In February my run of the Hercules show in Hammersmith slowly picked up an audience during my two week residency and got some good reviews (You can read about it starting here).
In February I also took part in Celebrity Poker Club 3 for Challenge TV. I acquitted myself reasonably well, despite being a bit green around the gills and came 7th out of 40 or so competitors winning £800 and starting a poker addiction that stayed with me for the rest of the year (You can read about it here and the next day). Despite a subsequent good showing at a proper Scrabble tournament later that month, poker was soon to usurp the nerd's word game for me.
In February I also recorded some talking heads for the Vic Reeves programme The Best and Worst of God. This was broadcast a few months later and inevitably they used all my most rubbish bits and didn't use my wittiest comments.
In March I recorded several episodes of the daytime nostalgia quiz Back In The Day hosted by Clive Anderson that were shown on Channel 4 in the summer and autumn. I also served a brief stint as the script editor for the third series of Little Britain. People seemed to love or hate this show when it was broadcast in November, but either way I had very little input so can not really be congratulated or blamed. I was also script editor for a stage version of Grumpy Old Women, which opened in Cheltenham in November. This seems to have been a massive success in previews and will tour extensively in the Spring of 2006.
On 29th March I recorded two episodes of self-satisfied game show Quote Unquote and failed to steal Germaine Greer's bra.
In April I started to review the Sunday papers for the Andrew Collings' show on 6Music, the digital radio station, which has been terrific fun, at least for the two of us. We seem to spend most of our time giggling at our own puerility. On the 12th I made the first of two appearances on the Richard and Judy show, this time talking about poker. You can read about both guestings here and here. Around this time I also wrote a couple of columns for the Guardian and Broadcast magazine. But neither of these seemed to lead to anything.
In May I made a brief and unusual appearance on BBC Leeds radio coverage of the election results. and then headed down to Oxford to interview Greg Raymer the WSOP champion 2004. I think this shows how diverse my life is. This month I also filmed my starring role in the short film A Very British Cult. I also shot a promotional insert for Channel 5's poker coverage, which I still insist was not an advert because it was part of the programme, but this is still the closest I have ever come to sucking Satan's corporate cock. I was as you can see playing too much poker, but I was making money off the tables, if not on them. I was asked by Virgin to write a book about my poker experiences, called The Poker Joker, but later in the year decided not to do it as I was not getting paid enough to cover my tournament entry fees and because I decided that my comedy fans are not interested enough in poker and poker players wouldn't be interested in my amateur views on the game. But I was also approached by Pokerzone to present an interview show, in which I would chat with professional players and poker loving celebrities. The show was called Heads Up with Richard Herring and was recorded in September and started broadcast in November. We did ten episodes, but the channel does not want any more of them. Which is a shame because it was quite good.
In June I recorded two episodes of Gyles Brandreth's quiz show Whispers which was broadcast in the autumn on Radio 4. I was also very busy previewing for my 20th Edinburgh show, which was called Someone Likes Yoghurt and I received a copy of my book Talking Cock in Russian which was a bit of a kick. As if that wasn't enough, the stage show version premiered in Iceland in the autumn. I also hosted the BBC7 Breakfast show for several weeks over the summer.
August was of course dominated by the Edinburgh Fringe. Go and look at the August entries of Warming Up to get a taste of the pain and the paranoia. In the end the reviews and the audiences were pretty good (see Press section for full reviews) and despite a handful of walkouts I feel most people enjoyed it (though you'll see it was selected by the Daily Telegraph as the worst comedy experience of the year, which is at least some kind of award so I am not going to throw it back in their face). I also did a lot of stand up gigs this year, and faced my demons by performing at Late and Live. Late in the festival I even did a couple of late night hour long versions of the yoghurt routine which were irritating and fun for all who witnessed them. I also appeared in a Radio 4 pilot for a new quiz show called Banter, hosted by Andrew Collings. Unusually for such projects it was really good and entertaining and was almost immediately commissioned. We started recording the series in December and I am in every episode. It will commence broadcast in late January 2006.
In September I probably reached the pinnacle of my career, when I opened the Cheddar Big Event. If that was not enough I performed part of the play Hamlet on the stage of the RSC, during some comedy workshops I took part in.
After a raft of meetings with TV executives in the spring I was commissioned to write various scripts and treatments. A pilot script for BBC1 called "You Can Choose Your Friends...." occupied most of my time throughout September to November. I finally got a first draft finished and the response from the BBC was very positive. BBC4 have also expressed some interest in a televised version of Warming Up (which celebrated its 3rd birthday in November - I have still not missed a single day) called Blog. We will be recording a taster tape of about ten minutes in January 2006 and if that gets the approval of the bosses, a series might follow in the autumn. The project is still with BBC LE radio as well, but I haven't heard anything from them as yet. I also have another two drama treatments to write (one for Channel 4 and one for the BBC) so next year could be a very busy one indeed.
At the arse end of 2005 I also appeared on one episode of poor BBC3 or 4 show The Comic Side of Seven Days, as well as a couple of documentaries, one about dark humour and the other about 90s comedy. I don't know what they were called or when they will be on.
Just before Christmas I also got a phone call from the producer of last year's Radio 2 show That Was Then, This Is Now telling me that the controller of the channel wanted another series in the autumn of next year. So if there is time to fit that in there should be more of those too. I am also planning to continue with the stand up and hopefully will do another Edinburgh stand up show.
BACK TO PRE 1985 - 1990
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BACK TO 1997 - 2002
GO TO 2006 - 2007
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| FORTHCOMING EVENTS
POSTERS:
You can now buy a copy of the poster of "The Headmaster's Son" from the good folks at gofasterstripe.com. Along with many of my recent Edinburgh show posters. Only five pounds each, or buy three for ten pounds!
LYRIC AUTUMN SEASON:
The November TMWRNJ special gig is now sold out.
Sun 26 October - SPECIAL SURPRISE HEADLINER WHO WE CAN'T NAME YET, BUT WHO IS BRILLIANT, Stewart Lee, Ivan Brackenbury and Wilson Dixon. BOOK NOW. LESS THAN 30 tickets left. Don't leave it until the last minute!
Call 0871 22 117 29
Or visit The Lyric website.
GIGS:
These are my upcoming gigs.
Click GIGS above for more details
Oct
4th Belgium
9th Birmingham - Headmaster's Son
10th Brighton - Headmaster's Son
11th Amused Moose
13th Comedy Store - Charity Gig
15th Islington
17th Charity gig somewhere
19th Manchester - Headmaster's Son
20th Manchester - stand up gig
26th LYRIC Hammersmith - less than 30 tickets left - SELLING FAST
31st Chesterfield
Nov
1st Witney - Headmaster's Son
PODCAST:
Collings and Herring PODCAST number 31 was recorded live and drunk in front of an audience on Thursday and is up at the usual website or you can subscribe through iTunes.
NEW DOWNLOADS/PRESS:
23 09 08 PRESS Review of Lyric gig
22 09 08 DOWNLOADS - My Guardian Guide to writing comedy (including earlier draft)
11 09 08 PRESS Guardian article about stage rage
10 09 08 DOWNLOADS - Express story about me in my pants + Time Out Review of meange a un DVD
YOUTUBE:
See a bit of my drunken gig from the Frog and Bucket on July 2nd here and watch as I effortlessly appropriate material from both TMWRNJ and Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World!
NEW STATESMAN:
I write a fortnightly blog for The New Statesman website, which occasionally has stuff that hasn't appeared in Warming Up in it.
LEE AND HERRING VIDEO:
Why buy the audio version of the slightly disappointing Lee and Herring video, when you can hear AND see it here for FREE.
TMWRNJ:
The first episode of TMWRNJ has been posted on google video. I suspect more might follow - Click here to see it
Or you can access loads of episodes on the website of Stewart Lee.
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![[ TC Book Cover ]](http://www.richardherring.com/images/bookcover.gif)
