Richard Herring’s multi-award-winning and perennially popular live
podcast interview show will tour this autumn. Dubbed “the best celeb
interviewer in Britain” (The Guardian), Richard’s RHLSTP has
continuously made headlines over the years due to candid and
thought-provoking conversations that create a different atmosphere to
the usual celebrity interview. Stephen Fry's revelation that he once
tried to commit suicide is one such example and, earlier this year, an
interview with Les Dennis went viral. Herring's other guests include
comedy royalty such as Dawn French, Bob Mortimer, Sarah Milican and
Steve Coogan and Run-Riot got in touch to find out what Herring has in
store for the touring show.
For those unfamiliar with Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, what can people expect from the live show?
If
only there was some way to listen back to the 250+ I’ve done and get a
feel for it... It’s a usually funny chat between me and an interesting
guest in which I try to avoid the obvious and well trodden interview
questions and find some stories that you won’t have heard before. But it
is different every time.
Which guests are you keen to interview who haven't already appeared on the podcast?
Michael
Palin, Michael Parkinson, Chris Morris, Jennifer Saunders... But I'd
also love to get some Hollywood A-Listers on the show.
How do you put your more hesitant guests at ease and encourage them to open up?
Flattery
mainly or telling them embarrassing stories about myself so they don’t
have to worry about theirs. Some people are just shy and a bit more
reticent though, so I just have to try and do a bit more stuff about me
on those ones.
What has been your most uncomfortable experience in an interview?
They’ve
mainly been great, but when it goes wrong it’s usually because the
guest has had too much to drink. I mildly misjudged the one with Stephen
Merchant, cos we’d been messing around and poking fun and so I failed
to spot he’d actually taken a bit of umbrage in the end, and the one
with the guest who was the most wasted was actually a fun challenge for
me. There was one where I felt the guest seemed intent on causing me
discomfort, but we cut out most of that in the edit.
Do you find you can sometimes slip into 'interview mode' when encountering celebrities 'offstage'?
I
rarely meet celebs off stage and I am a much shyer personality in real
life, so it’s likely I will feel too awkward to talk to them. I am
usually too self-conscious even to enquire about them coming on the
show, but the interview thing is just for the podcast.
You
raised money for Refuge by responding to asinine tweets decrying
International Women's Day (March 8th) and asking for an International
Men's Day (which already exists on November 19th). What was your
motivation behind this? Do you think the men asking this question are
wilfully ignorant or insidiously prejudiced?
The joke is a
simple one. Lots of silly people (not always men) think they are being
clever by pointing out that there’d never be an International Men’s Day
because of political correctness gone mad. I tell them there is one. I
think they are not being wilfully ignorant - they are just ignorant and
too sure of themselves even to google it, just to be sure. It’s pretty
much as simple as that, but with the added joke of the self-defeating
nature of the King Cnut style task I have set myself. I didn’t think
about trying to raise money from it for years. It was just a nice
meeting point of stupidity and my own dogged pedantry. It’s a pretty
horrible day for me to be honest, but raising the money has helped make
it seem less so.
How do you think the world of podcasting
is evolving? Do you think there's a chance we'll see an upswing in news
podcasts to counteract increasing mainstream media bias?
It’s
hard to know where podcasting will go, beyond the fact that we now have
an open medium of expression where people can try what they want on a
fairly level playing field. It’s a meritocracy where anything that is
good has a chance of success. I am not sure that podcasts are any more
reliable than any other medium when it comes to news though. Good
journalists and biased ones can have podcasts, just like in the
supposedly mainstream media. And there’s zero checks and balances for
podcasts so I’d say it was much more likely to be used for propaganda.
You've
maintained a daily blog - Warming Up - since 2002. That's quite a
commitment. Do you look forward to the ritual of writing each update or
are there some days when it seems like a chore?
Some days
it comes easy, other days it is a pain, especially now I am a dad and
so many of my days are the same. But when I hit a rich seam it is really
worth it. It’s more of a writing exercise and I’ve got better at just
getting on with it and not worrying if inspiration doesn’t strike.
You've
written a number of non-fiction books ranging from memoir to comedic
conversation starters. Do you think you have a novel in you?
Writing
books is the hardest of all writing and writing novels probably the
hardest of all books. I would like to do something comic or something
high concept that would be difficult in any other medium.
Are there any questions you'd refuse to answer when being interviewed yourself?
No.
You can always just lie. Or deflect. Or answer a different question.
But I am self-destructively honest, so will have a go at most questions
and answer as honestly as possible.
Richard Herring is on a
national tour with his acclaimed interview podcast RHLSTP. The next
London show is at the Richmond Theatre on Sunday 29th September.
