6. What do your parents/children (delete as applicable) think of your job?
My parents were always supportive to me and I think that although they have worried about the insecurity of the profession they now realise I am probably going to be OK. I used to find it awkward when they were at shows and I was being rude, but they are used to it now. Every year I do my tour show in Cheddar (where they live) and the show titles are usually so controversial that the posters that the theatre puts up just say “Richard Herring”, and I think they’d like it if I did a show that everyone from the village could enjoy without being offended. But they always come along and I think they enjoy it.
When I did the show about my dad I couldn’t get through the end of it without crying if he was in the audience. He’s never really said anything about that, but I assume he must be touched by it. My dad keeps asking when I will be famous. Though less so recently as I think he’s accepted that I won’t be.
7. What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?
When I was younger the travelling and the hotels and the drinking after the gig and seeing what happened were possibly the fun part, and occasionally at the Fringe the shows felt like an inconvenience getting in the way of trying to get drunk and meet women. But now the show and the stage time is what it’s all about and the travel and the hotels are the hardest parts. I try not to stay over now if I can help it, but returning from a gig (whether good or bad) and then sitting alone in a hotel room waiting for the adrenaline to wear off so I can sleep is boring. But I am more used to the solitude than I was ten years ago. I don’t mind my own company.
Now I have a family I just miss them and I can never sleep in in the mornings so don’t even relish the chance to escape morning baby duty. Last night I was on at the Frog and Bucket in Manchester, where I’ve done my tour show for the last eleven Octobers. Back in the mid-noughties I remember the venue being packed post show with people drinking and I’d stay out late with the venue staff, but last night I came down to the bar 15 minutes after the show and nearly everyone had already gone, which I was fine with as I wanted to go to bed. My audience has got old with me. But I like that really. And I am glad that things have changed. But the juxtaposition between being on stage and then everyone vanishing into the night and having to cope alone with your thoughts was a hard adjustment. So arriving at my hotel room door last night, knowing there was a long night ahead of me and that I’d wake up at 6am even though the baby wasn’t with me and missing my family is pretty much the worst bit. But the gigs themselves are such fun that it’s worth it.
8. I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?
I find it hard to decide. Like all performers I have a certain amount of self-confidence or I couldn’t do this job and like nearly all performers I am wracked with self-doubt and the feeling that I will be found out for the charlatan that I am. Occasionally people on Twitter or YouTube tell me I am useless or irritating or point out that I can’t be any good because I am not on TV now, as if they think I wouldn’t have thought these things myself. But ultimately with comedy you have a barometer that allows you to know if it’s working or not, which is a crowd of people in front of you who have paid for you to make them laugh and are so aren’t going to chuckle along politely if you don’t. And I pretty much always make pretty much all of them laugh enough to justify the payment. I think you can get by on charm and luck for a while, but I have to accept that having kept in work for a quarter of a century, I must be at least OK at this.
People I have worked with have gone on to become recognised as the best of the best and I have remained more of a niche interest thus far and occasionally I wonder whether my comparative lack of success is down to me being mediocre. But then every now and again I stop and think about what I have achieved: I have been working continuously for 26 years and nearly all of my work is self-generated. I have dedicated my life to my job (sometimes at the detriment of my personal life) and created a dozen one man shows, successful podcasts and slowly built up a live audience without much TV exposure (Lee and Herring never really put bums on seats and both of us more or less had to start again in the 2000s, not quite from scratch, but my audiences were regularly around 30-50 in 2001) and I am impressed and mildly amazed by what I’ve achieved. And doing all 12 of my shows in August was not only a very difficult test of memory and nerve, I was also surprised by how good most of the material was and how solid the shows were.
I have managed to turn myself into a viable business in which I give most of my stuff away for free, but still make a living and as a comedian I think I am still creating interesting and relevant work, which I might not be if I had fallen into the cushy life of hosting a panel show and presenting a reality show.
So I think I have become a pretty good comedian and that I’ve actually been fortunate to be left alone to do the things that I want, without being “discovered”. It’s allowed me to become a comedian, rather than a presenter or a personality and I have been given the time to learn and improve and do my own thing, whilst still being able to go about my daily life in almost total anonymity. As an older man I massively appreciate that good fortune and realise that it’s the work that is important, not the ephemera around it.
10. How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?
If you hang around long enough then your lucky breaks will probably come. But the key, I think, is to do the things you’re doing as an end in themselves and then it doesn’t matter if the break comes or not.
Also the reason you’re not successful might be that you’re not as good as you think.
But I had a very lucky early break which was to be working on Weekending when Armando Iannucci was producing, him liking our stuff and ending up writing for On The Hour. I’ve had a few unlucky breaks too, but I think over a career it evens out. But there are lots of great comedians who never get the attention they deserve, so you can’t feel churlish if it doesn’t happen for you either. The more I do this the more I realise the real achievement is to keep working through the ups and downs. Which is why Barry Cryer and Nicholas Parsons are two of the performers I most admire.
11. Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into a third category?
As anyone who listens to Me1 Vs Me2 snooker might attest, I am both of these things at once and the struggle where they meet is where my comedy (or not) comes from.
12. Who is your favourite person ever and why - not including family or friends or other comedians?
Kurt Vonnegut was amazingly wise, witty and humane.
13. Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not?
I am very messy. Every now and again I try to get organised (mainly as a prevarication exercise when I am supposed to be working) but it always falls apart. I think the disorder is part of the creative process. Things need to be upside down and out of place for your mind to get into that state. Maybe.
