We enter the stinking, stuffy White Belly (really that smell cannot be healthy with those working there each night, I was dry retching), to the strains of 80s songs, Come on Eileen and Tainted Love. Richard is taking us back to his schoolyard of 1983 in the town of Cheddar. He claims he’s trying to work out if he can explain how he came from a relatively happy youth, to a misspent adulthood. He claims he has turned out to be an arsehole, yet he obviously (from the programme provided), spends a lot of energy raising money for charity, he claims to have had a happy childhood, yet he was bullied and ostracised because his father was the school principal , it’s hard to take this show terribly seriously. He claims to be leaving his mid-life crisis theme of previous shows behind, yet, in this show, he is searching for a reason, why he’s a 41 year old single, promiscuous, layabout.
Herring is fast, furious and verbose, he is also utterly filthy. Why the hell someone decided to bring a class of Portuguese schoolchildren to sit in the front row to see him is anyone’s guess. Richard couldn’t help but be distracted by them, they were so obviously bored and kept chatting despite his shushes, but it didn’t stop his detailed diary descriptions of teen wanking or his reviews of porn which were quite hilarious. He even found a bit in the diary where the 16 year old Richard berated the 41 year old Richard. He tried to put in a Daniel Kitson type moment of romantic realisation about failing to dance in the rain with his friends, but didn’t somehow manage to pull it off in the same way.
The main thing that seemed to jump out of the show was that Richard has a rather scary Jesus complex. He referred to his diary as a gospel and shouts ‘I’m Jesus!’ for protecting kids from paedophiles by wanking the paedophiles off. Don’t ask. As you can tell, It’s not a show for the faint of heart. It is funny though and relentless. Check him out if your ready for a bit of a wild night. Be prepared to put some money in a tub for his charity Richard works for that is explained in the ‘free’ programme.
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