Stewart Lee/Richard Herring Articles/Reviews

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In bed with Lee and Herring

They were once the most famous double act on the fringe. Now they are back, they talk to Phil Daoust about being sacked by the BBC, getting 60,000 viewer complaints and why they never, ever want to turn into Ben Elton

Monday August 8, 2005
The Guardian

It's 18 years since Stewart Lee and Richard Herring first played the Edinburgh festival, though you wouldn't guess it to look at them. They're no spring chickens - Lee is 37, Herring 38 - but they haven't got the glazed nervousness of many festival veterans, or so many booze-broken veins. With just hours to go until their solo shows, Lee looks alert but relaxed, if perhaps a tad constipated; the only word to describe Herring is sleek. With their sunglasses and their black zip-up tops, you might take them for the kind of modern rock stars who prefer herbal tea to cocaine.


That might be appropriate, given that when Lee and Herring were on their way up, comedy was being described as the new rock'n'roll. But if ever they shared that view, they were disabused of it at the end of the 1990s. After two successful TV series, Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy, they had the plug pulled on them by the BBC. "We got treated so badly," says Herring. "It got cut off just as it was getting somewhere interesting." As performers, they have never again been so famous, though Lee's involvement with the "blasphemous" Jerry Springer - the Opera has earned him a certain notoriety.


The woman they blame for all this is Jane Root, then controller of BBC2. "It was really frustrating in as much as the shows got really good reviews," says Lee. "It was just the person taking over who didn't like them." The corporation justified its decision on the basis of poor audience figures, leading the comedians to claim that the scheduling was so erratic even they didn't always know when their programme was going out. Does it still rankle? You bet.

But in a funny way, they also have reason to be grateful to Root. If she had commissioned a third series, they might have ended up crushed under the kind of fame now visited upon Little Britain's Matt Lucas and David Walliams. "I don't think either of us would have enjoyed that level of notoriety," says Herring, wincing at the thought of punters yelling out "Moon on a stick!" a la "Yeah but no but ... " "I think Stewart would probably have killed himself."

"It was probably a narrow escape," Lee agrees. "I really didn't like it when we were D-list celebrities and people shouted things at us in the street." Still, he wouldn't mind a little more material success. He describes how his friend Walliams cruised past him in a sports car full of blonde models, all waving and laughing. "That really cheered me up," he says gloomily.

But that's not what it's all about. As comedians who started out in the alternative 1980s (they met while studying at Oxford university), Lee and Herring retain that era's contempt for the sell-out. "There's nothing we've done that we're embarrassed about," says Lee. "I think if we'd started doing lots of adverts or presenting the National Lottery people would have been disappointed."

Who did take the money and run? Ben Elton, Herring says without a second's hesitation. Younger readers may know Elton as a novelist and the man behind the rock musicals We Will Rock You and Tonight's the Night, but he was once seen as a radical comedian, a shiny-suited challenge to Thatcherite values. They're keen to see how he handles his return to stand-up later this year.

"The most interesting thing about Elton in the last five years," says Lee, "is the way that he's become a despised figure. You know you have to give titles to your stand-up shows; if I was Ben Elton I'd call it Fascinating Betrayal and try and justify my position. Instead, I expect he's going to dismiss that and then talk about fatherhood, or try and regain a bit of ground. It'll be like the elephant in the living room: you can't discuss Ben Elton's massive boil of hypocrisy that needs to be lanced."

It has been a bumpy ride since This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Herring made good money writing for Al Murray's TV series Time Gentlemen Please, and produced a book, Talking Cock, inspired by his own live show about penises. Lee directed a pilot or two for TV, and Simon Munnery's BBC2 series Attention Scum!, which was nominated for a Golden Rose of Montreux award. There was no shortage of work, though usually as individuals rather than as a double act. But things had a way of turning sour. Herring felt let down by the way Talking Cock was marketed. Lee had a flashback as Jane Root (her again) cancelled Attention Scum!

Herring kept faith with Edinburgh, but last year's show, The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace, "was all about getting depressed and wondering where your life's going". Lee, meanwhile, welcomed the new millennium by giving up stand-up entirely. The audiences for his live shows had begun shrinking almost as soon as he disappeared from TV. "I just started to feel I was drifting above the stand-up, not really involved, so I quit and just wrote for newspapers and lived off what I'd saved."

Then he got diverted by Jerry Springer - the Opera, the show that he co-wrote with the comedian and musician Richard Thomas. A cult hit at London's BAC, containing a reported 8,000 obscenities, it became a succès de scandale after being picked up by the National Theatre, transferring to the West End and finally being broadcast by BBC2. Only last year did Lee find both the time and the inclination to return to live comedy.

He wasn't overawed by the thought of working with the National. As the director of Jerry Springer, he was asked how he would scale up a production that had been created for the far smaller BAC - and said that he would hire bigger actors. But as someone who has spent much of his life defending a "low" artform from "highbrow" critics, Lee felt vindicated by his opera's success. One critic, he recalls, talked of a fringe sensibility jumping into the mainstream. "Now, whenever that happens, these things tend to work. When the BBC finally had the confidence to put Harry Enfield on BBC1, it got 8m viewers. Likewise Absolutely Fabulous."

Even comedians underestimate their audiences, Herring points out. "I have two sets, and I'll sometimes go into the easy cock-joke set if I think there's no point in trying, but the majority of people really want something clever and interesting and different - on TV and elsewhere. Most people are really up for it."

"Most", of course, is not "all". The BBC's decision to broadcast Jerry Springer - the Opera provoked a protest campaign spearheaded by the pressure group Christian Voice. More than 60,000 complaints were received, and death threats were made to BBC executives.

Given Lee's disdain for established religion, you might have expected him to relish the controversy. Not a bit of it. "We never tried to cause offence," he maintains. "He was very upset by it," agrees Herring, himself a confirmed Christian-baiter. "But I'm amazed he wasn't delighted. Just think - to have the most complained-about TV show ever!" He savours the irony of the BBC, which had spurned the duo six years before, getting payback in this roundabout way. "I think that's just a fantastic turnout."

After radio shows, TV, books, and highly structured live shows, this year they're both back to comedy at its simplest - two entertainers trying to make people laugh. If they ever did want to be superstars, that's no longer the case. "My ultimate ambition is to carry on working until I die," says Herring, "and being massively successful can actually stop you doing good stuff."

"I remember being here in 1987," Lee says, "and seeing Arthur Smith, Jerry Sadowitz and Malcolm Hardee, and thinking, 'That looks like a really good life - to be able to keep coming back to Edinburgh, doing increasingly strange but sustainable things.' You start off thinking you'd like to be Ben Elton, then you look at what happened to him and you think, 'That'd be awful.' Being Arthur Smith - that'd be fantastic." Looking back at it, he says, "The 1990s were kind of a write-off. First comedy was the new rock'n'roll. Then there was lad thing. Then you had the increasing dominance of commercial chains like Jongleurs. If you look at the circuit now, there's a lot of little weirdos scrabbling around, setting up their own little places. It's a lot more like the circuit that we caught the tail-end of in the 1980s."

There are lots of exciting young people, too. They "sort of like" Lee and Herring. Not that they're ready to relax yet. "Nearly always in Edinburgh there's at least a day or two when you feel like throwing yourself off a bridge," Herring says. "And there are lots of bridges here," Lee points out. · Stewart Lee is at the Smirnoff Underbelly, Edinburgh (0870 745 3083) until August 28. How To Write an Opera about Jerry Springer, featuring Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas, is at the Assembly Rooms (0131-226 2428) on August 16 and 17. Richard Herring is at the Pleasance Courtyard (0131-556 6550) until August 29.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/ma.../ixhright.html

The shape I'm in: Richard Herring
(Filed: 08/08/2005)
The comedian talks to Isobel Shirlaw about dieting, drinking and eating Marks & Spencer salads

You once took a show to Edinburgh called Richard Herring is Fat. Have you ever been on a diet?

Yes, almost constantly. I've done various things over the years. I did WeightWatchers for a while with my then girlfriend. It worked a bit, but it's all about losing weight rather than fat, which isn't always helpful.

Richard Herring's weight fluctuates
I'm exercising a lot at the moment, and I'm losing fat but gaining weight. I've always been a bit chunky - my weight fluctuates between about 12 and 16 stones, which is an unhealthy sign!

What's your most unhealthy habit?

I drink quite a lot - on average about a bottle of wine per night, which is too much - but I sometimes give up drinking for periods of time. As I get older, I am finding it increasingly hard to function with a hangover.

When did you last visit a gym?

This morning - I went swimming. I'm trying to go every day in Edinburgh, and, so far, I have been for the past four days.

Which alternative remedies do you swear by?

I'm not really into any of that stuff. I went to a homoeopath once, but she just told me that I was allergic to everything that I liked.

Would you ever have plastic surgery?

I don't think so, although perhaps they could just suck out all my fat at once. No, I'm quite enjoying getting older - the wrinkles and the grey hair.

Are you allergic to anything?

I don't think so. Beer tends to make me very tired, but I don't think I'm allergic to it.

What's your favourite snack?

Chocolate, but I've given it up recently with my new healthy regime, so I went on to fudge, but had to give that up, too. I'm trying to eat more fruit, and I like those Marks & Spencer pineapple, mango and passionfruit salads.

How many hours of sleep do you get?

I sleep pretty well - seven or eight hours a night.

What's your preferred form of exercise?

I like running. I ran the London Marathon last year. I like the running machines at the gym, too, because I can watch telly at the same time.

Richard Herring's new show, Someone Likes Yoghurt, is at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until August 29. For tickets, call 0131 556 6550

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http://www.paramountcomedy.com/livec...w/repa/id~1034

Stewart Lee - 90s Comedian at The Edinburgh Festival 2005

The past twelve months have been, shall we say, rather turbulent for Mr. Lee. Riding high on a wave of critical and popular acclaim for his controversial musical Jerry Springer: The Opera, he became engulfed by a mega tsunami of opposition from the rather more reactionary Christian right that nearly drowned him. Before you stop reading on account of that quite horrible use of metaphor, let me explain. When the BBC made the decision to show a televised version of the show a 600,000 strong hate campaign rose up, demanding that among others, Lee was to be brought down on charges of blasphemy. Every day he received dozens of emails, ranging from cheap insults to very menacing threats. It was then that Lee went through a period of insular retrospective and, by his own admission, heavy drinking. Huge success, it seemed, came with a huge price.

It is chiefly this that drives his new show, the excellent 90s Comedian. This hour-long set is a typically erudite, scathing and hilarious rant that you’d expect from the man who made his name in the early 90s as one half of the alternative double act Lee and Herring alongside Richard Herring. Together, their TV and radio programmes Fist Of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy made them a cult hit with students, much like The Mary Whitehouse Experience did for Rob Newman and David Baddiel. It certainly didn’t hinder his popularity amongst the student population that Lee used to strike many similarities with Morrissey, even going as far as appearing to buy his wardrobe from the same Oxfam as the former Smiths frontman and sporting and equally magnificent coquettish quiff.

Now, over a decade later, he still has the same haircut, and has, rather spookily, filled out in exactly the same way as Morrissey had when he made his come back last year! For Lee’s return to the stage, he has taken this opportunity to craft more of a therapy session than a stand up act. Throughout his set he takes us into the darkest regions of his mind (and when I say dark, I mean really, really dark – this show ain’t for the queasy) on an introspective journey, as he purges his soul from the demons that have been tugging on his quiff over the past twelve months. He also lays into Joe Pasquale.

And that’s the key to what makes 90s Comedian such a solid and brilliant show. Lee cleverly interweaves poignant and frank observations about the more serious things in life – terrorism, self doubt and depression – with lashings of childlike vitriol against the more trivial matters, like the collective works of Dan Brown and joke theft at the hands of Joe Pasquale. Throughout his set he reminds us why he is the master of slow, sarcastic delivery, able to break a sentence up with log pauses, drawing huge laughs from each couple of words that he has chosen with almost clinical precision. It is during the last half hour that things turn black as the night, as Lee recounts a bleak shaggy dog story based around the time just after the hate campaign emerged against Jerry Springer, when he was staying with his mum in Worcester and drinking heavily. It would be a crime to explain this any further, but let’s just say the he takes the audience to places they may not want to go, while at the same time ensuring that they are hanging on his every word!

Definitely one of the highlights of the festival so far, 90s Comedian is a must for anyone who likes their comedy topical, clever, dark and above all very funny indeed, which is no bad thing in anyone’s book. Especially if you don’t like Joe Pasquale.

Reviewed by: Adrian Mackinder

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http://www.newstatesman.com/Life/200508220029

When a knob joke is better than Brecht
The Back Half
Stewart Lee
Monday 22nd August 2005

Comedy has ruined Edinburgh. The Fringe, formerly a venue for alternative theatre, is now merely a showcase for gagsters who wannabe on telly. Or so goes the criticism. Stewart Lee, writer/director of Jerry Springer: the opera, doesn't think much of it

In my capacity as a stand-up comedian, I was asked by the New Statesman to produce a defence of comedy in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The problem was that, like Josef K in The Trial, I was not aware of the exact nature of the charges. Apparently, comics attend Edinburgh only in the hope of snagging a TV gig, while the proliferation of comedy has both wrecked the Fringe as a hotbed for alternative theatre and dumbed audiences down into stand-up leeches, willing only to go and see 40 minutes of knob jokes, rather than 40 minutes of Brecht. What a shock. As a comedian myself, I'd assumed we were loved. Suddenly, I feel I have been living a lie.

So what is our defence? It is fair to say that most comics go to Edinburgh in the hope of some career advancement. Despite increased audience numbers, most shows still lose money - often thousands of pounds. It is difficult for a young comedian to justify a personal loss of up to £10,000 for the sheer pleasure of performing alone. Without TV gigs, corporate work or bookings at chicken-in-a-basket chains like the Comedy Store or Jongleurs, no stand-up makes enough to shrug off that kind of loss. At best, most Edinburgh-bound stand-ups hope to raise their profile among promoters, or simply to become better comedians, having had the luxury of performing their own hour in their own space for a month. Believe it or not, there is huge camaraderie among comics, despite the spiky portrayals in Annie Griffin's recent satirical film Festival. Television executives who snaffle talent from the Fringe should be viewed with suspicion any- way. Most acts are working all year all over the country. Any suit who snags them during some expenses-paid trip north isn't really serious about his job, and should be spat at in the street.

Besides which, these days the TV deal isn't what it was. With the advent of cable and digital TV, there's a lot of televisual static that needs filling today. Who better to do it than stand-up comedians, who can work without a script, and will perform, literally, for peanuts? BBC3 comedy shows are made on one-third of the budget for BBC2 shows ten years ago, even before factoring in inflation. A hack of a stand-up comic, with the kind of bland material that will play well at Christmas parties, Jongleurs or the Comedy Store, will make more in a year than a new comic on a TV development deal, and 20 minutes of jokes will last them a lifetime. Television isn't necessarily attractive: there's a whole generation of youngsters carving out their own alternative circuit in major cities who view it with suspicion.

The proliferation of comedy at the Fringe is not self-generated. Remember, one of the wonderful things about the Fringe is that it does not have an artistic policy. You pay for your space, and if people come, then you'll come back. The growth is in response to public demand, and I doubt that it has been at the expense of theatre. The Fringe has simply become bigger.

Even in the unlikely case that comedy may have stolen audiences from theatre, there may be reasons for this. London has the biggest comedy-club circuit in the world, and the Edinburgh Fringe rewards comic risk-takers. Stand-up in Britain advances in leaps, and despite what you may see on television, is becoming ever more fascinating at the grass roots. American, Australian and Canadian comedians come to this country because they want to be a part of it. This gives the lie to the - admittedly arguably facetious - last point on the charge sheet: that stand-up on the Fringe has dumbed audiences down to the point where they are willing only to go and see 40 minutes of knob jokes, rather than 40 minutes of Brecht.

On the contrary, an audience that has seen Will Hodgson, Will Adamsdale, Simon Munnery, Josie Long or Daniel Kitson will probably have been dumbed up. And surely, in the 21st century, we are beyond condemning a performance for its subject material. There are lousy knob gags. And there are sublime ones. There are knob gags that are infinitely superior to a poor-quality production of Brecht, and which contain more poetry and wit than the average theatre production. All human life begins with a knob gag. There is much that comedy can learn from theatre; but there is probably more, about pacing, accessibility, simplicity of staging and the way to sell strange ideas to suspicious crowds, that theatre can learn from comedy. And I speak, albeit arrogantly, both as an Olivier Award-nominated theatre director and as a working comic.

We live in strange times. The government drip-feeds us facts on a need-to-know basis and it appears that whole areas of discussion - such as suggesting there are links between the London bombings and Iraq, or criticising religious belief - are prohibited. On the night after the last round of London bombings I saw a young Asian comic, Paul Chowdhry, talking on stage about how the public's fear of Asian men meant he was finally able to get a seat on the Tube, and sometimes had the entire network to himself. Comedy can respond to events with a speed that theatre cannot match. And even apolitical absurdity is an appropriate response to mass panic. We laugh in the face of death.

Perhaps there is too much comedy. And this piece is biased anyway: I have chosen the best examples to shore up the case for the defence. The best way for those of us who work in comedy to respond to criticism is simply to be better, to raise our game to meet the challenge of the times. If we don't, then we will die like dogs, and the shame of it will outlive us.

This article first appeared in the New Statesman. For the latest in current and cultural affairs subscribe to the New Statesman print edition.