For almost twenty years now Richard Herring has been a noted member of the comedy world, initially as half of Lee and Herring with Stewart Lee and over the last few years since the demise of this partnership as a solo performer of some note. He is also a prolific writer as well, Al Murray and Little Britain are just a couple of examples of TV programmes that have had the benefit of Herring writing for them.

Although both Sheila and I go to a lot of comedy gigs each year, for a number of reasons, this was the first time that either of us had seen him perform his full show, the show that always seemed to be surrounded by controversy during it’s Edinburgh ’09 run, not least of all with the poster everywhere showing Herring sporting the ‘toothbrush’ mouser, and a certain article misquoting him an a national daily.

The Stand Comedy Club was sold out for weeks prior to the gig and every seat taken long before show time, as the Sunday night Edinburgh crowd were out in force.

The original idea of the show was for Herring to reclaim the ‘Hitler’ ‘tache for comedy, just as it had once been, with Charlie Chaplin as the chief exponent. It also gave him plenty of scope to relate how this small area of facial hair has impacted on his life, attitudes and anecdotes of people’s reactions to it. He also takes the opportunity to ridicule racism in every which way and berate the apathy of British voters and their responsibility for the BNP European election results, and many, many more topics.

Herring, an Oxford University graduate, is obviously a very clever and articulate performer as well as being exceptionally funny. For more than 90 minutes he expounds as only he can, with a well-written, clever show, superbly performed, eliciting huge waves of laughter throughout. I can only speak for myself here but I certainly could have listened for a whole lot longer than the allotted time.

For the last two Fringes Di has had a free run at the reviewing ticket for Mr Herring and he has had 5 stars both times, I certainly now know why. Just maybe there will be some opposition for the 2010 one.

More information on this excellent performer can be found on his comprehensive website www.richardherring.com and for all future gigs at The Stand, both for Glasgow or our second home Edinburgh, check out their recently revamped website www.thestand.co.uk