Richard Herring (born July 12, 1967) is a British comedian and writer formerly best known as part of Lee and Herring, a double act with Stewart Lee. He was born in Yorkshire but grew up in Cheddar, Somerset, and was educated at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. With Stewart Lee, Herring wrote material for Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's On the Hour (1991). It was during this time that the duo came up with the initial concept for the character Alan Partridge. In 1992 and 1993, they wrote and performed Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World for Radio 4. For Radio 1, they wrote and performed one series of Fist of Fun (1993), which was later remade for television. They also hosted a series on Radio 1 in 1994 and 1995, simply called Lee and Herring. A final television partnership with Lee, This Morning With Richard Not Judy, was a victim of BBC management reshuffles.
In 2002 Herring played the role of Renchard in the Doctor Who Webcast Real Time, together with Stewart Lee as Carey and Colin Baker as the Doctor.
Since cordially ending his informal partnership with Stewart Lee, Herring has written and performed thought-provoking one-man shows to critical acclaim. Most noteworthy of these shows was Talking Cock - released as a book in 2003 - which The Guardian described as "man's answer to The Vagina Monologues." Like Patrick Marber (a long-standing rival who was described as "curmudgeonly" in Fist of Fun), he has also written and produced several plays.
Richard recently co-wrote and presented the history based sketch show That Was Then, This Is Now (Or TWTTIN), a 6 part series produced for BBC Radio 2. A second series has recently been commissioned and is likely to air in September 2006.
He has also written for television, most notably penning a large portion of Al Murray's sitcom vehicle, Time Gentlemen Please, on which Stewart Lee worked as script editor. Herring has also contributed to the third series of Matt Lucas and David Walliams' popular TV sketch show, Little Britain, as script editor.
On 25 November 2002 Herring started his blog Warming Up as a way to overcome writer's block. He has kept the blog updated regularly ever since and as of 11 May 2006 had not missed a single day. It's estimated that he has a regular readership in the 1000's. Some of the ideas from Warming Up were used in his 2005 Edinburgh show Someone Likes Yoghurt.
Richard Herring currently presents a chat show called Heads Up with Richard Herring on Pokerzone (Sky channel 226) in which he interviews professional poker players and celebrities about their careers and their love of the game. He also guests on Andrew Collins' BBC 6 Music radio show on Sunday afternoons, and is a panellist on the new Radio 4 gameshow Banter.
