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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.
The DVD is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen, as you’d expect, and there’s no problems with the picture whatsoever. I’m more used to Blu-rays, so when watching a DVD on a 50″ plasma, the image looks a little soft, but that’s no defect with the DVD itself.
Similarly, the audio is in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Pro Logic) and there’s nothing going on in the rear speakers but you don’t expect them to be – it’s not a special FX film. It’s mostly Richard Herring with the mic, and that’s all you need.
The extras are as follows, the first three of which are on the first disc and the rest are on disc 2:
- Poster Shoot: Behind the scenes (5:22): Photographer Steve Brown, who has shot some of Herring’s previous posters, talks through some of the alternative concepts and filming the shoot itself.
- Railways and the Holocaust (9:36): Richard Herring talks about this magazine… sorry, bookazine, and how it came to be featured in the show, as well as what happened when a ranting punter complained to him about it after a show.
- Dropped material (2:06): A routine which featured early on in the tour but was dropped later on, as it mentions the now-deceased Nelson Mandela. I won’t spoil what it was about, but it still made me laugh.
- Richard Herring’s Meaning of Life Episode 4: Death (1:29:57): The episode of the internet series which is also available on the Go Faster Stripe website and there’s some of this content which also features in the main show itself, but I love extras like this. I’m a completist and it’s great to have to hand precisely what inspired the main show.
I love well-chaptered films and performances, but unfortunately while the main show only has two chapters (one per half), this one only has three.
- Edinburgh Audio: The show performed at the Edinburgh Festival on August 23rd 2013, and as it’s just an audio file, it’s impossible to scan through it or even see exactly how long it is, but the website confirms it’s 91 minutes.
- Gravestones Explained (4:17): Richard Herring talks us through the set pieces.
- Start of the 2nd Half (11:29): Richard Herring freeforms with the audience before he records the second half, and it also explains how he ends up in his own audience during the show!
- Waving at the Pigeons (24:35): A much younger, and considerably less bearded, Richard Herring takes part in The Oxford Revue 1988 along with his classmates. Again, it’s extras like this which, had they not been filmed back in the day, would be lost forever and are, thus, priceless. It’s great fun to watch.
- Chris Evans (NTO) Trophy III Another audio piece, so I don’t know off-hand how long it lasts, where Richard takes himself on at “Me1 vs Me2 Snooker”, as he’s described in his Metro columns.
The title is for the third Trophy in the series, following previous DVDs, and it’s in the name of “Chris Evans (not that one)”.
I really enjoyed watching and listening to these extras and it shows that a lot of thought has gone into them rather than most DVDs and Blu-rays which give you a handful of generic extras at best.
Subtitles are in English, and chapters are very thin on the ground with just two during the main performance. I feel one should come every five minutes on average whether a performance or film. The menus on each disc feature spooky graveyard-like sounds.
Richard Herring: We’re All Going To Die was recorded live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London. There’s the 2-disc DVD for £15, or for £17 for also yet a copy of the gig programme, and they’re available to buy now from Go Faster Stripe.com
Check out more info about Richard Herring at RichardHerring.com
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
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| OVERALL | BUY IT!!! |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 92 minutes
Year: 2014
Released: November 26th 2014
Chapters: 2
Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
Sound: Dolby Pro Logic (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Disc Format: 2*DVD9
Producer: Chris Evans
Poster and menu design: Steve Brown and Ben Gubb
Sound: George Lingford and Tom Joyce
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.
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