Richard Herring: Christ on a Bike – The Second Coming

Live Review

Richard Herring: Christ on a Bike – The Second Coming rated 5/5

What an absolute pleasure it was to watch this show. Spending time with Richard Herring made me wish that some of his wit, cleverness and verbal dexterity might some how rub off just by being in the presence, touching the hem of his comedy robe, if you like.

His fierce intelligence and delight in argument and rhetoric still make him the smartest, mouthiest 43-year-old kid on the block and the sheer relentlessness of his delivery makes this show an absolute bargain if you’re calculating cost per phrase.

Picking holes in the inconsistencies of the Bible is a whole theological career for some, here in an hour Herring went to town on the gospels of Matthew and Luke in particular, the nonsense that is transubstantiation (How many wafers might constitute a whole Christ?), the chaos of the Ten Commandments and so much more. I had the best single laugh of my entire Fringe here, not for anything clever but for a non-verbal wail that was supposedly an aide memoire for the an opening chapter of Matthew. And it seemed the rest of the audience were completely tickled by it as well.

By turns smart and silly, a long argument with Jesus is decided with a much discussed bike race where following logic ends up with the most bonkers outcome. This is not an offensive show, he doesn’t condemn Christian values of good behaviour, but the dogma and rigidity. Rarely is comedy as stimulating and exhilarating as this, as well as being utterly hilarious.

Date of live review: Wednesday 25th Aug, '10

Review by Julia Chamberlain