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...