Richard Herring: The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace
Jeremy Hardy
Jeff Green
Horse & Bamboo Theatre: A Strange & Unexpected Event

Thursday 21 October 2004.
The Platform, Morecambe Box Office 01524 582803

Richard Herring: The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace

Like most Platform audiences, we all came from afar. Morecambrians themselves live in a strange tangle in the weft of time which allows them only to participate in free events set in the 1940s. When these occur they materialise in their trillions and their mobility apparatus, bussed in from their church coffee mornings and their seniors' social clubs. Then they disappear again to spend the aons writing letters to the local paper (in which news from the 1940s features prominently) to complain about the council's inability to make it permanently 1949.

So, that's the context. A dark and stormy night. A converted railway station with a deadly layout that puts the performers in the one part of the room where the fewest possible people can see them and the sound will bounce incoherently off the back wall. It's like being in a church where the main altar is vacant and the priest is operating out of a side chapel. Except they'd never be that daft.

And the good news is that there's no smoking - at the request of Richard Herring, and no bar while he's on stage. Great, I'm happy already. I'm sick of gigs where some old tosser whitters on endlessly at the bar in the background while I'm trying to listen to the show, and three neurotics at the next table chain smoke at me. I stock up on drink.

Richard Herring himself is quite pleasantly mad. He explains the loss of his previous relationship in a way that is, as these things tend to be, both sincere and unconvincing.

His mission to emulate the twelve tasks of Hercules showed a expansive breadth of vision - a willingness to embrace experience that I had to respect. His choice to do these as an escape from post breakup depression gives a clue into the essential madness of the project. Another clue was when he spoke disparagingly about the Gods - squabbling superbeings who messed with Hercules - and also with his chances of completing his set task of Consecutive Number Plate Spotting (CNPS) - and they retaliated by sending a bolt of lightning which flashed across the glass roof of the Platform with a jarring strobe. When you speak to the gods - that's prayer - when they speak back, that's madness.

All this is accompanied by a slideshow - with video - there's video of how his team won the celebrity boat race after he accidentally hit a competitor in the face with a oar. (I think if it had been me I might have burned that footage, but no, Richard shares it all - or seems to anyway).

I loved the story of how he made a national appeal for a virgin to help lure out the Loch Ness Monster for him to slay (thus emulating Hercules' slaying of the Hydra). The only response was from 18 year old Dave Warburton of Crewe. I was also impressed by his 50 dates with 50 different women on 50 consecutive days. And even more so by his being able to remember them all, reeling their names off in order and where they went!

Despite being greatly debilitated following the completion of this task he went on to complete the rest. And I won't spoil it by telling you them all - but it was big, it was clever and it was very funny.

You have to see this guy. It's not just that he's funny. They're all funny, comedians (OK we've seen the odd bomb but rarely), with their endless insights into relationships, or their political lullabys. This guy goes deeper into things. OK in this case it's far from understandable why - the CNPS thing - if it's true - speaks of a lower, lonelier ring of hell than that in which train spotters reside. However, surely, the ambition to run naked through the streets of Pamplona to save bulls is glorious. And it was reassuring to know that most illegal hallucingens are more fun than skydiving with a bald, pink-suited instructer strapped to your butt. Who else could have told me that?

What's also remarkable is that this bloke writes his blog every day and you can read it at his website.

See: http://www.richardherring.com/hercules/warmingup/.

Read reviews of the other Comedy Festival gigs:

Richard Herring: The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace
Jeremy Hardy
Jeff Green
Horse & Bamboo Theatre: A Strange & Unexpected Event