The item about internet comedy was on the Culture show tonight (
Watch it on iPlayer - it's the last item) and unsurprisingly my hour long interview and recording of an episode are condensed down to about 30 seconds. Inexplicably the footage of the show is captioned "Richard Herring "As Good As It Gets"" which is quite a long way from being the title of the show. If it was the game Mastermind that would get one black peg and one white peg. Unless that was the Culture Show's review of the podcast. I might use "As good as it gets" The Culture Show BBC2 on future publicity. You see if I don't! At least I was wearing my "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" T shirt in the interview, though looking fat and tired and old. But not so old that I am not at the cutting edge of homemade comedy. I am going to try and see if the BBC will give me the whole interview with Josie Long to put on a future DVD or something, because it was an interesting conversation and included more than me saying I knew more about comedy than people who work in TV! Still nice to be sharing the programme with my childhood hero and butter-lover Johnny Rottens. The appearance does not seem to have led to an upsurge of interest on iTunes, so I don't know if many people even saw it. And if they did they are probably frantically searching for a podcast called "As Good As It Gets". In fact if I was you I would start one up right now in the hope of leap-frogging me in the charts.
But at least AIOTM seems to be making a mini-splash in the massive ocean of podcasts. I think it's fair to say, that a few furious internet based mentallists aside, it has been an experiment that has worked. It will be interesting to see how it holds up financially speaking, although that's scarcely the point and as long as I can the occasional appearance on Buzzcocks or Argumental and write a book and sell a few DVDs here and there I am not going to starve.
How many times in the last 7 years have I felt like I was on the cusp of something significant happening? A few. And none of them had immediate returns, but it's definitely the case that I am moving forward in tiny increments. I would happily stick at this point with what I've got. It's a nice balance of doing what I like for free, whilst earning money without having to advertise butter. It's going to be interesting to see how the tour goes in the Spring, because that is where the difference is really noticeable. And there is a real sense of progress and achievement in having built those audiences up from a low of around 30 punters for some of the Christ on a Bike tour shows to usually getting a couple of hundred and sometimes four or five hundred now. And it's only taken the best part of a decade. Though it is more satisfying to know that this has happened due to word of mouth and hard work, rather than having been a regular on a panel show. And maybe also easier to cope with the incremental increase than the "overnight" success.
Not everyone is a fan though. Someone on Twitter got in touch this morning to say "DOES ANYONE EVEN FIND YOU ENTERTAINING YOU BORING VERY UN FUNNY MAN. GET A CAREER LIKE STEWART LEE YOU BELL END!!!!!!!!!!!" and you can tell from the capitals and the number of exclamation marks just how furious he is. Though he could have had an extra exclamation mark if only he had realised that "unfunny" (sorry, "UNFUNNY") was one word. He then added, "YOU ARE AS FUNNY AS WOODWORM IN A CRIPPLES CRUTCH. PACK IN STAND UP AND AT WORK AT BURGER KING YOU PATHETIC LOSER!!!!!!"
This time his refusal to put an apostrophe in "CRIPPLES" gave him an extra exclamation mark.
I don't know if he imagined that this would wound me or make me cry, but it only made me laugh. Partly because, even if he was right his unsolicited opinion and aggression just makes him the tragic figure here, but mainly because after 20 years I am well aware I am not to everyone's tastes, but I do know that enough people find me funny to mean that I probably won't ever have to work in Burger King. Nando's maybe.
I mean I have a degree in history from Oxford University. Even if everyone realises that I am shit at comedy I would surely be more likely to work in an office, or as a teacher or something.
Unless my career was curtailed because they found a dead body in my swimming pool.
But luckily I am never going to be successful enough to have my own swimming pool.
My mediocrity is my salvation.
The thing is that you can't really cheat these things with live comedy. You quickly find out if you're not funny because you stand up in front of audience after audience that don't laugh. Even if you're a massive star and people are well disposed towards you, if you don't cut the mustard on the night then you will be able to tell. I am on stage at least three times a week trying my stuff out and usually getting laughs (both to audiences who are "fans" and in clubs where often times most people have no idea who I am), so I am regularly able to assess whether I am funny or not. I'd say I am doing OK.
Ten years ago this crazy internet criticism might have destroyed me, because at times I wondered myself if I wasn't just a chancer who had got lucky. But now I know I am a chancer who has put in some work and got back something for that. And I know comedy is just subjective anyway.
So you can hide behind the anonymity of the internet, sniping at others because that makes you feel like you're a big man (but then why snipe at people you consider to be worthless - what does that make you?) and copying jokes out of Viz and off of Jimmy Carr, but the only way to find out if you are actually funny is to go out there in the heat of the spot light, in front of a crowd of people and open up your heart or your soul or some dark spot that resides somewhere between those two places and find out for sure. And then keep going at it until you work out what the Hell you're doing.
In another twenty years I might even be good at this.
