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Review from http://www.mindthegag.com/pages/herring.html

Richard Herring:
The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace

Tuesday 15th February 2005
Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, London W6

Richard Herring is one half of that semi-legendary comedy duo Lee & Herring, who were responsible for, amongst other things, Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Herring and Stewart Lee appear to have gone their separate ways permanently, with Lee touring with his stand-up and writing Jerry Springer The Opera. Richard Herring meanwhile has been taking several million different one man shows to the Edinburgh Festival and around the country. Last time the mindthegag.com team went to see Richard Herring, he was performing “Talking Cock”, his response to “The Vagina Monologues”. Rarely have we experienced such hilarity in conjunction with thought provoking material, and plain excruciating stories of unfortunate people.

This show is based on a difficult time Herring went through when buying a house (in Hercules Terrace), and splitting up with his girlfriend, while simultaneously suffering writer’s block. He decides to emulate the mythological Greek hero Hercules and his Twelve Tasks, by performing his own Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace. He adapts Hercules original tasks to a more appropriate format for the modern day; for example Killing The Nemean Lion became going to Loch Ness to slay the Monster; Capturing the Hind of Ceryneia became running the London Marathon, and Cleaning the Augean Stables became cleaning out the Elephant House.

He weaves his way around his tasks with consummate verbal skill, and really engages the audience with his sympathetic and honest telling of his adventures, particularly having fifty dates with fifty different women on fifty consecutive nights (which he cleverly substituted for Catching the Erymanthian Boar). Another less clever substitution was that of walking on hot coals instead of Capturing King Diomedes’ Mares. I guess there’s less of those around these days. He also introduces the audience to the insanity inducing game Consecutive Number Plate Spotting. On no account ever try this game, or even find out what it is.

Richard Herring did, and it appears to have ruined two years of his life. It takes a special kind of performer to entertain an audience for ninety minutes using only his voice, but Richard Herring does this with consummate ease. A great night’s entertainment. And there’s a collection for his favourite charity Scope at the end of the night to make everyone feel better too.

Visit Richard’s website at www.richardherring.com