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Richard Herring‘s tenth stand-up show, We’re All Going To Die, looks at the fact that, at some point in the not-to-distant future, all of us living now will be dead. You, reading this. You’ll be dead soon. That man on stage telling jokes and making you laugh. So will he, sadly.
Will we come back again like the characters in the US drama Intruders, or will never see the light of day ever again… much like the chance of Intruders Season 2, given the low ratings it’s received.
Death is the subject that no-one wants to talk about, most of the time, because with it comes the unknown, so it’s ripe for 92 minutes of dark comedy, which leads Richard to ponder the important questions in life such as “If one serial killer kills another serial killer, does it work like conkers?” and “If all the people who’ve ever died throughout history, stood on the Isle of Wight… they’d scare away all the tourists.”
Herring expands on the notion of a friend of his who suggested that whatever we *think* will happen after we die *does* happen, and the ensuing organisational nightmare for God. Personally, at the age of 42, I think I’ll make it to about 57, then drop dead and be whisked off to an afterlife that’s an exact recreation of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I’d love to live in the ’80s, but at an adult age when I can enjoy it. So, perhaps I should’ve been born in 1962, not 1972. But then if I was, I’d be even closer to death than I am.
I could do with an eternity of sleeping, as even at this age I feel permanently knackered, or maybe that’s due to all the Jagerbombs I had last night.
In the show, as well trying to achieve immortality, Richard Herring discusses topics as diverse as 9/11, bumming, Steve Bennett from the Chortle website, wanking, an old woman who swallowed a fly and Hamlet, plus the obligatory “skellington” reference.
Check out a clip of the show below.
Richard Herring is one of the few comedians out there who have been consistently entertaining over the years, especially with his use of wordplay. He also has a long partnership with the equally excellent Stewart Lee, including the TV series Fist of Fun, which I only saw a bit of at the time, and This Morning With Richard Not Judy, a Sunday morning TV show which made me laugh so much that I almost coughed up a lung. They got away with such a lot at the time, but the risque nature of it probably annoyed the suits at the Beeb and the lower-than-expected ratings also didn’t help, or as Richard sad at the time, “The show must be so successful that they keep moving us around the schedules JUST to give the other shows a chance!”
That said, the BBC are a public services broadcaster and aren’t meant to be ratings-chasers, but tell that to the bigwigs at the top who are more concerned about putting huge channel logos on the screen, and shouting about what’s on next before the current programme has finished, than they are about the programme you’re currently watching. This goes the same for all other broadcasters.
However, since then, we’ve also had fantastic Radio 4 series such as As It Occurs To Me and That Was Then This Is Now, one episode of which ended with Richard Herring saying that the show is about “History – The thing we hastily delete, before logging off from the internet!”
There’s also his daily blogs and gig warm-up videos, his weekly Metro column on a Wednesday and it just makes you wonder why the BBC are continually missing a trick in giving him a weekly TV show. It’s probably because they’re too obsessed with cookery programmes and will waste their time on bog-standard fare like that.
And let’s hope Richard Herring is around for many years to come; (a) to keep us entertained, and (b) because he is soon to be a father for the first time and he must impart all of his worldly knowledge to his new arrival, including the fact that there are people who watch performances of their father on their television, and then write a review about them on the internet.
Click on the packshot for the full-sized image.
Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.