Richard Herring, blogging comedian

Posted by Jackie Danicki, 15 September 2004

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Ahem:

...I propose that all war memorials to the dead are knocked down and replaced with war memorials to the survivors (the people who did their job PROPERLY), not to all the idiots who couldn't even parachute into a barrage of gunfire and manage to carry on living. After all it was not dead men who liberated Paris or shot Zulus (in that equal tussle between guns and spears) or captured Saddam Husseins. The people who were dead were no use at all (I would almost go as far to call them lazy, but certainly unhelpful) and should be ignored and forgotten...And when they're being thrown into their graves, [there] shouldn't be ceremony or flags or 21 gun salutes. No, a man should just sarcastically shout, "Oh thanks a lot," and then add "For nothing" in case anyone hasn't picked up on the sarcasm. And then punch their grieving widows in the face for good measure. And let that be an end to the whole embarrassing episode.

So says British playwright, author and comedian Richard Herring on his blog, Warming Up. Yes, it is meant to be funny. No, do not send us complaint comments or emails if you do not personally find it funny.

I talked to Richard about his blog recently, and he tells me that as well as the increase in traffic to his site (it has nearly doubled, with the one million mark looming after less than two years online), his blog readers have helped him to raise more than £8000 ($14,000+ US) for charity. On a really cool note, more than 8000 of his blog's readers around the world contributed to his book and one man show entitled - and let us clear our throats here again - Talking Cock. Richard adds to that:

Obviously a lot of those people would have come to the shows or bought the book.

Summing up his experiences with and feelings about his blog, Richard says:

[I]t has helped keep a dedicated army of fans interested in what I’m up to. And thus has some promotional benefits, though that’s not why I really started it....Generally I think it makes great sense to do a blog from my point of view. It keeps fans in touch with me and what I’m doing...[P]eople seem to love reading personal stuff...[P]eople do seem to get well into these things.

That they do.

In addition to keeping existing fans abreast of what Richard is doing, his blog has also helped him to create new fans. And just check out how many blogs are linking to his. For a British comedian whose humour is far from the mainstream, that is saying something. In an age of unfunny jokes forwarded to us from our older family members for whom the novelty of email has not worn off, a truly hilarious comedian engaging people via a blog is giving a better name to the concept of humour on the internet. If I could only get Chris Rock (warning: audio plays upon opening) to dump the slick-but-good-for-absolutely-nothing Flash site and start blogging, then Richard Herring's blog might have some competition in the online comedy stakes.