Not one of the cool kids
It’s a fine line to walk — tilt too much one way, and the subject loses its humour, too much the other and serious or sensitive subjects risk being overly trivialised. It’s a line, however that Herring, for the most part, has walked with skill, increasingly so as he has matured as a performer. So shows like Talking Cock, Christ on a Bike and Hitler Moustache have won him critical plaudits and a hard-core of loyal fans, but — for whatever reason — have not quite propelled him either into the ranks of the comedy “artist-ocracy”, now occupied by his former partner, or into the gang of arena-touring “Haircut Comedians” like Russells Howard and Kane. For those too young to remember Fist of Fun, Herring is likely to be an unfamiliar face. For those who do remember it, but have only cultivated a passing interest in comedy since then, it might seem that Herring’s destiny was to fall between the cracks of comedy history.
Adam Biles on Richard Herring’s Edinburgh Fringe Podcast.