Richard Herring has ways of making you laugh

Comedy Review: Richard Herring: Hitler Moustache

By MICKEY NOONAN - Wednesday, August 12, 2009

In the interests of social experimentation and comedy, Richard Herring – a self-proclaimed woolly liberal – has grown a Hitler moustache. He wants to rid it of its Nazi connotations and reclaim it as the Chaplin moustache. Not enough to call his show Chaplin Moustache, evidently, but then Herring loves to spark debate, even if it's mostly with himself.

Herring is remarkable at taking a controversial point, claiming it as his own then following it to the point of ridiculousness, and in this way completely undermining his proposed fact that, say, racists have a point. It's canny, ironic and unmistakably woolly liberal. Not that Herring's approach is anywhere akin to dull rhetoric. He questions himself, the world and everyone in it and, crucially for a stand-up, never lets the laugh rate drop.

Comedy moustaches have been a staple in fancy-dress boxes for decades, but never has one so connected with hideous racism been made to seem so silly yet so important. It is, after all, just hair, but Herring uses it to make points and raise difficult questions that we all somehow have to answer.

Much fuss is made about Herring's former TV partner, Stewart Lee. And rightly so – he is comic brilliance. More fuss, however, should be made about Herring, who is as talented, offering cleverly deconstructed comedy and ideas with less self-indulgence, more bang for your buck and, for this show, a free Velcro moustache.

Until Aug 30, Underbelly, 8.40pm. www.underbelly.co.uk