The Gentleman's Reticule

I saw Richard Herring’s Hitler Moustache last night at the Komedia, Brighton.  It only served to strengthen my opinion that he is one of the best, most hard working and most underrated of Britain’s comedians.  He hasn’t quite achieved the cult status of Stuart Lee, his erstwhile comedy partner, but in my humble op - he’s probably a little more important.

Now, I love Stuart Lee, but where he experiments with stand-up, subverting our expectations with protracted routines, over-analysing linguistic or cultural minutiae, Herring tends to lunge for your heart (in an emotional sense) with material based around universal truths (childhood, ageing, people assuming you’re really into yoghurt) and stand-up with a social conscience.  Hitler Moustache for example delves unabashed into the subject of racism, ultimately highlighting how utterly ridiculous it is, while at one point having the guts to openly bollock his audience for letting the BNP gain seats at the EU.  He reasoned that statistically there must be some in the room who failed to vote in the European elections, people who are laughing at his anti-racist material while they themselves did nothing to counter the rise of this fascist party.  The audience laughed - it was a little more subdued though.  Some more subdued than others.  He finished by reading a section of Chaplin’s speech from The Great Dictator, this one in fact, and he urged people to vote - for anyone but the fascists.  It was a serious, heart-felt ending to the show.  I left feeling uplifted. 

A lot of the mainstream iterations of stand-up performance, the stuff we see on TV, make it easy to forget how important comedy is for combating social evils and injustice; a point RH makes in Hitler Moustache.  It should be unashamedly passionate, angry and eager to convey its message, however awkward this may be or however much some people don’t want to hear it.  Comedy that’s a slick, cynical roll of the eyes or pithy comment after the fact is lazy and it is cowardly.  Richard Herring continues where Bill Hicks left off.

Click here for Richard’s remaining Hitler Moustache dates.