Richard Herring live in Gravesend: review

5:35pm Friday 28th November 2008

By Michael Purton »

During stand-up comedian Richard Herring’s gig at the Woodville Halls Theatre in Gravesend on Tuesday (November 25), he described being slapped by a young woman after a performance in Nottingham two nights earlier.

She had obviously found something in his show extremely offensive, but it seems to me she had been offended because she simply had not got Herring’s sophisticated humour.

To be frank, she was too dumb to understand the irony of Herring’s material, which looks at taboo subjects, such as paedophilia, and satirises the over-reaction to the issue of the general public and media.

Perhaps the reason that Herring, although a professional comedian for almost 20 years and a regular on TV and radio, is not as successful as marquee names like Peter Kay is that he does not appeal to the lowest common denominator - to people like the woman who slapped him.

Anyone who turns up expecting to see a string of crude observational ‘I’m just like you, members of the audience, really I am’ jokes will be disappointed.

Fortunately that was not the case in Gravesend, with the small audience laughing along with Herring as he made intelligent jokes, and crude jokes with intelligence behind them.

One of the best was the following play on maxims: “I chose to live my life by the motto ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’.

“Unfortunately, as it turns out, my enemy is his own worst enemy, so I have to invite him to barbecues and stuff. Its quite annoying as I don’t really like him.”

Other material included a satirical look at childish hand-symbols for sexuality and descriptions of his own pathetic attempts to pick up women in bars, and it was all painfully funny.

His appearance was part of Gravesham Council’s efforts to establish a regular comedy night in Gravesend, and if the acts remain as excellent as Herring, the venture will be a success.