15/10/14
Frog and Bucket, Manchester
The UK’s hardest-working comedian brought his Edinburgh Festival
show to a sold-out Frog and Bucket, bringing much-needed laughter on a
grim and rainy Wednesday night in October. As ever, when you see a show
in a different venue, there are pluses and minuses.
The pluses were evident from the word go. Herring was able to extend
the material over a more leisurely ninety minutes, instead of the
brisk one-hour slots that are the Edinburgh norm, and it was also clear
that he’d honed and polished the material since August, extracting every
ounce of humour from it. His unique, hectoring style is a joy to
behold, finding laughs in the most unlikely places and time and again,
he strays perilously close to the indefensible, only to dance nimbly
away, defusing the whole thing with a barrage of carefully chosen
invective. Laugh and learn folks, laugh and learn. At times, the packed
audience was near to hysteria.
The minuses were mostly imposed on Herring by circumstances beyond
his control. He couldn’t, for instance, recreate the ingenious circular
narrative of the original shows, mostly because of the confines of the
club’s tiny stage and the fact that the titular settee (freshly sourced
for each location, apparently) looked as though it would have resulted
in broken limbs if he’d tried to do what he did in Edinburgh. But
ultimately, it didn’t matter. A friend at our table judged this to be
one of the best comedy shows he’d ever seen and the iconic name of
Daniel Kitson was mentioned as a suitable comparison. This was also an
opportunity to get hold of the (reasonably priced and much-longed for) Fist of Fun
DVDs. There are still some seats available for later in the tour (Crewe
in particular, judging by an off-the-cuff remark that Herring made
onstage) so if you have the chance to catch a show, then I would
strongly advise you to take it.
Laughter is in perilously short supply these days and this is comedy gold.
4.7 stars
Philip Caveney
04/08/14
Assembly, George Square Theatre, Edinburgh
There surely isn’t a harder working comedian than Richard Herring –
and no trip to the fringe would be complete without a set from him. This
year we also have the opportunity to see a play he’s written, I Killed
Rasputin (more of that in due course). His stand up event, Lord of the
Dance Settee, is perhaps less tied to a concept than previous outings;
he himself describes it as a collection of ‘bits and pieces’ – but that
hardly does it justice. A visibly slimmed down version of Herring bounds
enthusiastically onto the stage and launches into some recollections
from childhood – though of course, these are much more edgy than
they would be in the hands of a lesser comic – and you find yourself
laughing (sometimes uncontrollably). Just when you think the event is
going to be allowed to peter out, he ties everything together, quite
brilliantly, with an ending he’s asked reviewers not to reveal… So I’ll
simply say that it is joyful, heart warming and totally unexpected. It’s
been said before (mainly by him) but Herring really is the King of the
Fringe. Long may he reign.
4.6 stars
Philip Caveney
