Richard Herring's Leicester Square Podcast: A Bit Of Fry And Herring

I have tickets to all 6 RHLSTPs this season, and having attended the first very funny and rather silly episode with Chris Addison, where the focus was on who had smashed the kitchen cupboards in the flat they shared with Stewart Lee, Dan Antopolski and Richard Thomas in 1992, which has been an ongoing mystery for a number of years, this week's show was the one that I was so looking forward to seeing. The wonderful Stephen Fry.

Trusting Richard's bookings, I blindly bought all my front row seats. I know that next week I'm seeing Mary Beard and John Lloyd, but still don't know for sure who will be the final 3 guests.

I met up with my new Twitter friend John Galantini (who does his own podcast which is worth listening to) at The Imperial, where we were soon joined by his fiancee Mary, as well as Sarah and a couple of her friends.

We headed to the venue and took our seats. Soon Richard was on stage to do his mainly improvised warm up. This was one of the best scriptless sets I've seen him do, even though he told us very early on that he was worried because Stephen Fry still hadn't arrived. it was mainly good-natured audience banter with a pair of butlers, a nuclear physicist, and two odd lads who had taken their seats in Row B rather late. He spoke to "I Love London", as he soon became known due to his hat, and this lad was desperate to be ignored. his coat was buttoned up, he had pulled his hat down, and of course this intrigued, and slightly worried Richard. His friend was a little more chatty but there was still something odd about his demeanour that Richard or the audience couldn't put their fingers on. As Richard chatted to the physicist, pointing a handheld camera at him, demanding that he tell him how to make a nuclear bomb, a huge cheer erupted. Stephen was in the building! By the way, you can listen to this stand up set by searching on iTunes for RHLSTP or clicking this link here.

We took a short break where i paid my traditional visit to the Burger King toilets. Before I went I was chatting with a girl outside and we saw "I Love London" and his mate leave the venue, clearly with no intention of returning. This was both disappointing and a huge relief.

Stephen Fry has long been a hero of mine, and I have loved virtually everything he has done from when i first saw him (probably on Saturday Night Live, I'm not sure) through A Bit Of fry And Laurie, to QI and the various documentaries he has presented.

I'm not going to go into much detail about the content of the show. You can listen to the audio for free, or spend £3.50 and download the video from Go Faster Stripe, and I really recommend you do so. It's such an astonishing interview in many ways.

Richard and Stephen had never met, and Rich seemed very nervous about meeting and chatting to his hero. However Stephen was as gracious, funny, warm and wordy as you would expect. We found out if Stephen had ever tried to suck his own cock, as well as if he would choose to have a ham-hand or an armpit that dispensed suncream. Stephen told us of his terror at performing at Sydney Opera House with no material whatsoever, and the irony of the show going so well that a second night was booked. Names were dropped, literary references abounded, and we got to hear a long discussion about 12th Night. Richard was getting more confident and challenged Stephen on the time-anomalies of his book "Making History" as well as dropping enormous hints about all the quite interesting facts he knows, which Stephen took in great fun,

Chris Evans (not that one) who runs Go Faster Stripe has a 12 year old son, and Richard decided to use some of his questions to ask Stephen. One was simply "What's it like being Stephen Fry?" Fry thought about this and explained that it is generally a pleasant experience, as people tend to be nice to him, and he gets to travel so much and do things that he would never be able to do if he wasn't Stephen Fry. Then candidly, and with totally brutal honesty tells us about the part of his life that is not so much fun. Stephen has been open for some time about his struggles with manic depression, and tonight his honesty and sincerity stunned the audience into complete attentive silence. There was a revelation that caused an audible gasp, and I think I will be thinking about this night for quite some time to come.

Kip Hakes, his mate Danny and I hung around with Richard's web monkey Rob, and his wife Catie, hoping to get our picture taken with Stephen. We saw him briefly as he came out of the dressing room with Richard, but only had time for a brief chat with Catie and he was off into the night. I didn't think it was appropriate to badger him for a photo.

Catie's brother was also here, who I had drunkenly flirted with about a year ago. He asked for a cigarette and we went outside. I decided to deflect any awkwardness by apologising for my embarrassing actions last summer, but damn it! He didn't remember. Now I've just created awkwardness where there was none. Anyway, after a short chat with Richard it was time to go.

What.
A.
Night.

RHLSTP (rhlstp)

As you probably know, Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast is the London version of RHEFP (rhefp), the daily Edinburgh Fringe podcast which debuted last year, but running weekly and with higher profile guests. Upcoming guests I will be seeing in this series include Charlie Brooker, Stewart Lee, Atrmando Ianucci and Graham Linehan.

I wasn't planning to go to ths one as I was working a night shift and couldn't get leave, but once Jonathan Ross was announced as the guest, after a failed attempt to get Stephen Fry, I toyed with the idea. Rose said she wanted to go, and I was surprised to find that plenty tickets were available and there were two front row seats which I nabbed.

Unfortunately a few days later Rose told me she couldn't go as she had been involved in a bus accident (it's OK everyone, she is still alive!) and I asked my friend / landlord Ben to go, who sighs every time I mention the name of Richard Herring. He isn't really into comedy and don't think he's been to any shows before, but he surprised me by saying "yes".

We headed to Chinatown and he treated me to a meal before we headed to the theatre. We took out seats and bumped into Robin, who I had met at both the Christ On A Bike recording as well as an AIOTM (aiotm). Nice chap!

Ben was a little worried by sitting at the front, but I told him we were over at the edge, and Rich was more likely to chat to people nearer the middle. He was relieved. Although the mins point of sitting here was that even though we were in the front row we could only see the back of Jonathan's head, and the table between them rather obscured Richard.

At this recording, Francesca Martinez was also on as Jonathan had to leave early so Rich decided he was going to record 2 podcasts. This cut down on the stand up he would normally do before the show, and very soon Jonathan was introduced.

I'm a big fan of Ross, and it was great to see him chat with Rich totally unscripted. Of course Rich asked him about the Russell Brand and Andrew Sachs incident, and JR managed to handle it well, and not say anything stupid, but I imagine he has been asked about this enough in the past. Rich and Ross spoke at length about his history in broadcasting with some real laugh out loud moments, but Rich seemed more than a little nervous, and although he was a little bit naughty, he didn't quite go as far as he did in last week's Tim Minchin show. No prolapsing rectums discussed at all, and even more disappointingly, Richard had forgotten to ask Jonathan if he had tried to suck his own cock. Looking at Twitter after the show it seems Richard was holding back a little as he didn't know him that well and didn't want to go too far too soon.

Francesca joined the podcast for the last few minutes and she got a huge laugh when being "understanding" about Jonathan's speech impediment (Francesca has cerebral palsy in case you didn't know.)

After the break we had another podcast, this time featuring Francesca on her own, and this was much more relaxed for Rich, as it is clear they are great friends. Her parents were in the audience, which led to some embarrassing moments for her and at the end of the quiz (which I lost by answering "true" to "Does Richard have a long neck?) drew cries of "Fix!" when Francesca's mum won one of the prizes. I was getting a little annoyed by some chatterers a few rows behind me, but they weren't at a level that disturbed Richard, although they did shout out a few times. I guess they really wanted to be on the podcast!

A stand out moment for me was Richard's cutting edge reference when talking to a DJ in the front row, asking him "Are you one of those real DJs who does scratching, like Malcolm McLaren"?

I left literally 10 seconds before the end so I could get to the loos before anyone else and run off for my tube to work, which, I am glad to report, I arrived at with a minute and a half to spare.

As is tradition in Richard's live podcasts, the tickets are cheap to attend live, but of course, they are all released as soon as possible, usually the next day, for free on iTunes, and you can find them here

You know, when i bring non-comedy fans to gigs I always feel a little responsible if they don't enjoy it. I texted Ben afterwards and said that I hpoed he had fun. His reply... "It was great!"

Roll on Charlie Brooker...

Do The Right Thing

Originally rather cheekily billed as coming from the "creators of AIOTM" (soon changed to "production team - ie : bloke that presses record), this pilot podcast is the brainchild of comedian, musician, and Dave Gorman sidekick, Danielle Ward.

Now, I'm not sure what a pilot podcast is. Perhaps it has to go through some sort of podcast authority these days. That's political correctness gone mad! Anyway, as it is a pilot, I'm not sure whether this is going to be released or not. I would assume it will, because all in all it was a rather fun night.

I met up with Simon and Paul at the venue (The Phoenix - surprised?) where they had ordered two huge plates of cheese. We were soon joined by Neal and said hello to comedy stalwarts Rob and Kate. (At their table there was a lady whose trousers were so low when she leaned forward that we could see most of her flowery pants. Unfortunately I was told by my more sensible tablemates that it would be inappropriate to take a picture of this for my blog.

Thom Tuck

Opening tonight was Thom Tuck; one of The Penny Dreadfuls. They are a sketch troupe that I don't know very much about. They had headlined at All Day Edinburgh but it was a long day and I didn't get to see them. Anyway, he performed a preview of his new Edinburgh show for around 40 minutes or so, and was an absolute joy. I do love seeing an act for the first time and being completely blown away by them. His show revolved around his obsession with Disney straight to DVD movies and the fact that virtually no one in the audience had seen them didn't make it any less funny. There were also occasions when he told us of when he had his heart broken... by a girl, as well as a fantastic 3D joke, involving Paul, some special glasses and a lightly tossed ball of paper at his face. Thom was rather surprised later when it turns out Paul had seen as many Lilo and Stitch movies as him.

Michael, Jim Bob, Danielle, Margaret & Dan

After a short break, Danielle introduced the panellists for the podcast. Michael Legge, Jim Bob, (from the fantastic Carter USM),  TV Burp writer Dan Maier, and Margaret Cabourn-Smith. The format was similar to many panel shows, this time the questions were (as you probably guessed from the title) about what the right thing to do is for a given situation. What's the right thing to do when plummeting in a lift? What to do if you get chased by a bear? Audience members contributed their own problems at the start of the show which the panel gave very funny, if slightly unwise advice for, as well as trawling through the problem pages of the tabloids.

Michael, was his usual shouty self, which of course we all like. We know Jim Bob writes extremely witty and pun laden lyrics, and in a live comedy situation he was very very funny indeed. Dan reminded me a little of Andy Hamilton. He didn't say much, but whenever he opened his mouth a fantastic line came out of it.

The show was occasionally interrupted by the occasional shout of "libel!" from Ben, and perhaps too much good natured heckling from the man in the front row who thought I was Kevin Eldon (???) but other than that it all ran rather smoothly shambolic.

This was a fun night. In order to ensure a good audience the price was an astonishing £2.50, but I think most people would be willing to pay twice as much in order for the team to at least cover their costs. Danielle had mentioned this would be unedited, but with a little editing this could be tightened up nicely.

Oh, I had a little chat with Thom afterwards and he is playing at The New Red Lion in Angel on Tuesday 3rd April. I'm planning to be there. Come along.

The March Of The Podophiles

"Michael and James, what will they say on the podcast today? The answer is precious little."

Michael and James looked absolutely astonished that the entire crowd was singing the theme tune, dissolved into fits, and cut the playout of the jingle to let everyone carry on. A good way to start the podcast I'm sure you'll agree.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You've seen the #preciouslittle hashtag on my tweets but have been either too scared or disinterested to ask me what it is.

Well, I'll tell you. Precious Little started around 40 weeks ago after a drunken conversation Michael Legge (Michael) and James Hingley (James) had in a bar at the Edinburgh festival. 2 podcasts are released most weeks - the main one usually lasting an hour or so, followed by a mini one a few days later. Basically it's 2 men sitting in a room and talking. It started out with a very similar vibe to Collings & Herrin (dismissively referred to as "The T-shirt Salesmen" but over the months has developed into something very different. We have been introduced to ghost hippos, upsetting stories on trains, catchphrases - "What's WROOOONG", and James' mum's infamous bucket.

But who ARE Michael and James? Michael is a stand up comedian who has written an almost daily blog which is an essential read. Nothing much is known about James, but his mum does keep the house very tidy and he has very nice hair. James has never been photographed. In fact the image at the top of this blog shows what happens when it's tried.

As the weeks wore on, M&J had an idea. To record the 40th podcast in a cellar in front of 40 podcast fans (or podophiles for short). Invites were applied for, emails were sent out and like a cold war spy drama various codes on twitter were used so that only we special people would know where it was.

It was at The Phoenix. Everyone was shocked.

I arranged to meet up with a group of podophiles at The Old Explorer just opposite, where @Neal55 and I often enjoy fish finger sandwiches. We had about 10 people join us there. I may forget people, but there was Vicky Harsehole, Barry Skellern, Ian, Neal Peters, Neale Hitchiner, Nicola Woolhouse (and big thanks to her for putting these pics in the public domain so I could steal them!), Graham Lock, Mister_Boris, and Sven. If I have forgotten you, please let me know and I'll make sure you're added.

We went over to the Phoenix and met up with the now legendary William Tennant and awaited further instructions.

As you can see from the picture opposite, certain podophiles clearly loathed each other.

Now, Neal and I had a good idea that Collings and/or Herrin may be appearing as they let slip a little clue on their previous podcast. We already had biscuits for The Gentleman's review, had a whipround for M&J's drinks, so we got some Haribo and Oat Milk for the special guests. But then the sad tweet came through from Collings: "I will be with you in spirit. In other words, I won't be there". What the hell was I going to do with a litre of chocolate oat milk ?

We were called downstairs where the podcast was being recorded and we found our seats. Which is where we started.

Pam Ayers, aka "@mushybees" performed some of her poetry to get the crowd warmed up which seemed to go down very well, but as Michael later pointed out, 2pm on a Sunday is a very unusual time for Madeleine McCann jokes.

The podcast was done completely live and had a similar feel to a regular podcast. Precious little is fairly interactive anyway, but Michael seemed to thrive in front of a live audience, and surprisingly, James did too. The two were at their best today. Along the way we had to deal with the tragic story of Lauren who couldn't come in as she was only 17 (although there was another 17 year old lad in attendance!), Mushybees' youthful antics with Raoul Moat, and of course The Gentleman's Review who I have only recently got into. The hour and a bit flew by, and we were given an official 5 minute break before the recording of the mini podcast.

This was dedicated to the "last ever" "Fuck-A-Thing". Michael has been doing FAT on Twitter for some time now which inevitably ends in Michael losing a number of followers as he retweets any answers that he finds funny and annoys the people who arent playing the game. Today's FAT was "If you had to fuck a sitcom, which sitcom would it be?" Jingle Jim (aka me) was summoned to the stage where he rather nervously at first strummed his uke and started bellowing the tune. Luckily for him, all the podos and I think most people on stage shrieked along. Apologies to Martin Wolfenden for performing this with my arse in his face.

The answers were read out.  "Two And A Half Men" seemed to be popular (though I have never heard of it). I thought mine was great. "I'd fuck Hi-De-Hi -  I'd give Peggy a good yellow coat" although no one seemed to understand it. i found the Gent's Review and Precious Little boys' surprisingly naive lack of knowledge of watersports rather charming.

Then, it was all over.

Not really. the next six hours were spent boozing. first at The Phoenix, before a hardcore crowd went to The Blue Posts in Newman Street where Michael's prediction that there would be no body there was literally correct! We had an entire pub to ourselves. We could have just done the podcast there and saved all that walking time.

Next venue was an unusual choice. We went for a drink at The Royal Festival Hall. It was lovely and en route, Hitch's pineapple was dispatched into the Thames. He also appeared to have broken one of my uke strings though he firmly denied it. I had resented that uke as I had to carry it around everywhere. Now I had had a number of drinks and things were getting hazy. I decided to set it on fire.

It didn't want to burn.

I heard the name "Jimi Hendrix" and I ordered Hitch to destroy the fucking thing. I was rather disappointed that the first two bashes on the concrete floor weren't enough to do the job, but delighted that the third blow smashed it into a number of pieces held together with the remaining strings. I was then disappointed again as the security people didn't enjoy our larks and gave me quite a ticking off.

I apologised like a scared girl.

I soon received a few tweets about this. Most people were utterly horrified that this had happened. However I had offered my uke to anyone that would listen for a measly tenner. I was already bored and annoyed with it before we left (or even arrived at) The Phoenix. No one wanted it. So who are the real villains of the piece? Me and Hitch, who ruthlessly destroyed it on a cold  hard floor? Or the tight fisted bastards who wouldn't give me a tenner? I think we all know the answer to that.

Anyway, have a listen yourself !

Precious Little Podcast 40 (Live)
Precious Little Podcast 40.5 (Live - Fuck A Thing)

And I still have the fucking oat milk.

As It Occurs To Me

Those of you who know me will already know that I'm a big fan of comedian Richard Herring, best known for "Fist Of Fun" and "This Morning With Richard, Not Judy" - his 90s series with Stewart Lee. I listen to all his podcasts (Collins & Herring, Collings & Herrin, and of course, As It Occurs to Me, or AIOTM (pronounced A-Eye-Aw-Tim-Uh) and I guess I could be described as a bit of a fanboy.

As It Occurs To Me is a stand up and sketch show which Herring writes on the Sunday, performs on the Monday and releases for free on the Tuesday. It's a brave venture, and one that originally looked destined to fall on its arse, but every week without fail some pretty amazing comedy is produced. The USP of this show is that Herring does not edit anything out, and the whole thing, no matter how successful or otherwise is released. As Richard explained in one of the previous shows "I don't want to patronise our listeners. is 'patronise' the right word? No, I don't want to 'respect' our listeners." (paraphrasing).

The idea came to Richard during the aftermath of the Ross/Brand incident. The BBC had to be extra careful with what could be allowed on the radio, and bypassing the broadcasters seemed like the best way to get the comedy out there.

The cast comprises of Herring, Dan Tetsell, Emma Kennedy and Christian Reilly, all of whom have worked together before. The show starts with Herring doing around half an hour of stand up, which along with a few tried and tested routines, mainly consists of riffing with the audience. He can be quite rude to the people he picks to chat to, but it is always done with a cheeky grin, and I think all of the audience secretly want to be called a "fucking idiot" by Herring!

I started my evening with a visit to The Stockpot on Old Compton Street. This is a great little restaurant whose menu (or prices) don't seem to have changed much since the 1970s. Its a good place to eat alone, but a dreadful place to take a date, unless you're planning to break up with them anyway.

I'm going to detour briefly here. I used to be the assistant manager of The Admiral Duncan in Soho, and every day without fail I would see Smurf. Smurf was one of the many homeless guys that would base himself in Soho. He clearly had a number of other problems as well as the obvious, but Smurf was a really nice guy. My boss and I knew quite a lot of the regular homeless people in Soho and we all had a good relationship with them. We would both give a small amount of money each day to the first of the regulars we saw and it was inevitably Smurf. In return he and the other regulars would let us know about any dodgy people that were coming into the bar, like an advanced warning system. It was very much a mutually beneficial arrangement. After a year or so, Smurf wasn't around any more and I had heard that he was either in prison, hospital, or dead.

However it was great to bump into Smurf this evening and chat with him. His mum had just died and she had left him her house in Ireland which he has put on the market. He has moved in with his dad in Kent after not speaking to him in 29 years and things were finally starting to look up for him.

Anyway, off to the theatre and took my seat. Herring did a good half hour of material, including a short preview of his upcoming "Christ On A Bike" show. he does need to work on relearning the genealogy of Jesus though...

During the break I met The_Phosphene who I had been chatting to on Twitter & we arranged to meet after the show. I'm not going to review the whole show as you can easily download it here or from iTunes (as you can for the next 4 Tuesdays - or even better, go along to the gig!), but needless to say, Tiny Andrew Collings (absolutely NOTHING to do with Andrew Collins, Richard's podcast partner and respected broadcaster and writer) was the star of the show with Herring trying to apologise and backpedal for going too far in last weeks show. It did look like the apology was going well, but in the end I think it made things much, much worse.

It was a shame I couldn't get my hand high enough to catch his attention during the part where Richard asks the audience what has occurred to them that week. I was going to apologise for not being able to attend last week's show due to seeing Michael Legge and Andrew Collins instead, but was confused at seeing Andrew Collins chatting with Tiny Andrew Collings. This had blown my mind. But I soon found out that it wasn't Dan Tetsell, but his doppelganger Danny Wallace (who was an extremely nice chap.)

After the show finished I chatted at the bar to The_Phosphene (aka Jack) as well as the ever-lovely Rob Sedgebeer. I have met Herring on quite a number of occasions, and only recently have I stopped being a bit of an over-talkative drunken dick while chatting to him. Richard is a very affable guy in real life and always has time for a chat. Although one Irish guy did tell Richard that if he didn't play in Ireland more he would punch him in the face. He said it with a smile so I can only assume he was joking but that in itself seemed to make it more threatening to my ears! Though things cheered up as Jack regaled Richard with his 3some story, which I found very touching <aside - I didn't..>

Highlight of my evening was getting to finally touch an actual pinpod*. Emma Kennedy had hers with her and I simply had to ask her to let me hold it and prod it. I'm not sure if I'll get a pinpod* yet, but if I had a few hundred quid I wouldn't miss then I definitely would. It's a lovely thing.

Jack and I headed toThe Porcupine by Leicester Square and swapped comedy memories, eventually chatting with a young lad at the bar and trying to explain AIOTM to him. This is actually quite tricky after a few beers and trying to explain the in-jokes, but if he turns up next week, then I think Richard will owe me at least £5. Which will probably through some unusual logic result in Andrew Collins owing him twice as much.

* no explanation will be posted here in tribute to Andrew's confusion at the lack of an asterisk explanation on a bottle of Plax, but all is revealed on the podcast!