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Times preview of Hitler Moustache

Richard Herring’s 25th Fringe show last summer became his most controversial before it even opened, thanks to a spat over a newspaper article that he insisted took lines from it out of context. And when your show includes lines such as “I began to think that the racists had a point”, you, too, might be wary of where they go when you’re not there to look after them. The defence of “irony” is valid but hardly begins to explain what was going on in the show.

Andnowthat Hitler Moustache is setting off on tour you can judge for yourself. I found it a really excellent comedy show: a playful, pointed and often bitterly funny attack on racism. And if his growing of the ’tache of the title sounds like a stunt for stunt’s sake, Herring is the first to list the objections. “It’s a lot of commitment,” he says in the show, “for what is essentially quite a glib idea.” Yet this glib idea takes him out of his comfort zone of self-mocking self-aggrandisement— or is it self-aggrandising self-mockery?— and gives him something real to rub up against. He recounts his misadventures out and about with amoustache that makes him feel like a leper . Best of all, he embarks on gloriously specious arguments. “It’s important to respect people’s cultural differences . . . is it, though?”
If the show has a fault it’s that he ballasts it with too much sincere anti-racism. But when he’s debating whether he’s mocking prejudice or just wallowing in it, he’s electrifying. Dominic Maxwell Whitstable, Fri, Folkstone, Quarterhouse, Sat, then UK tour (richardherring.com) Hear Herring’s podcasts with Andrew Collins at tinyurl.com/yf4c6fh