Speaking of British comedian Richard Herring, it's impossible not to talk about another British comedian, Stuart Lee. In the far nineties, the two performed as a duet, performed successfully and once even recorded an hour-long performance of Lee & Herring Live. However, then, as is often the case in creative unions, it was decided that neither one nor the other will not reach their huge potential while this face is next door. As a result, everyone went their own way, although comedians are still best friends to this day. However, the point is not that, but that with fairly similar views on comedy, it was Lee, not Herring, who managed to achieve more success during this time. Until the end of the zeros, Richard continued to perform in scented clubs, while Lee managed to give birth to the opera Jerry Springer, which brought him fame, write several successful comedy programs, and then get into the box - not somewhere, but on the BBC - with his own show! But this is not a simple injustice. All the answers to why this happened can be easily found in the work of the “loser” Herring, and the rush of “Menage a un” in 2006 in this case is a very vivid and illustrative example.
The sense of proportion is one of the most important feelings that are necessary for any comedian who has any claim to success. If you recall one of the most popular comedians of recent years, Louis C.K., it is impossible not to admit that he is an excellent at this matter: each topic develops as long as it should and ends when it exhausts itself. Richard Herring's sense of proportion is not so familiar. In truth, if you do not watch the rest of his speeches, except for "Menage a un", it begs the logical conclusion that the sense of proportion is unfamiliar to him in principle. You can call it style, and you can be kind of right. There are moments when something absolutely unfunny in its nature, very long and tediously considered in a certain context, becomes ridiculous. They squeeze everything out of it to the last drop, and a little bit more - and this "little bit" turns out to be a real bomb. However, this is extremely rare, and it is worth using it skillfully on occasion. Herring tries to use it everywhere and always. That is why we have to look with a stone face at how a sweaty Briton in a tight T-shirt with an overweight twenty minutes squats potatoes and an apple in his hands in an attempt to make a monologue about language differences funny. That is why I want to rewind the molestation of the girl from the auditorium, which occupies a significant part of the performance. That's why yawning over the monologue about masturbation with the stigmata of Jesus, the fifteen-minute mono-dialogue, is so easy at the end. Herring keeps squeezing out the rag, which is dry. From talkative at first to mid-performance, Richard turns into painfully wordy, and from educated to boring and boring. Of course, you can call it style, but with the same success you can call the verbal twists of the double at the board, who says anything, so as not to be silent and not to admit ignorance of the subject.
Of course, Herring’s mistake was not just that. The existing stand-up culture, in large part, is that many of the performances are actually about everything and nothing at the same time. Similar characteristics apply to contemporaries of the genre, and even to classics like Carlin. Herring builds 'Menage a un' on the same principle - and misses, as few of the chosen topics Richard managed to really reveal, despite the verboseness. In later works, the comedian will address mainly one topic per performance, and it is in them that he will show his best side. In addition, here the comedian's liability can be brought and frankly stupid jokes on "warm-up", and a bunch of repetitions of the same things, and the final duration of all this performance. Two hours for comedy is a lot.
It is impossible to keep silent that Richard, of course, is very honest and sincere with the audience in his performances: laughs at himself and his manner, ironically, somewhere sad. It's fair, it's bribing, even though the pills don't really sweeten. 'Menage a un' proved to be the antipode of the 'fast and cheap' masturbation promoted in the title, becoming a very long and painful performance of the act of 'marital duty'. This is when all parties understand that there will be no orgasm today, but continue to act. All for love, of course. And this guy, he loves his audience and he tries very honestly to do what he does well, but that doesn’t excuse him. Even with the denouement, as in the famous joke, where there were laughs and bedtimes, it somehow does not work out too much. To laugh. Sad, of course, but what can you do? Viagra for comedians, unfortunately, has not yet been invented. Although, if you look at the further path of Herring, after “Menage a un”, there is a strong feeling that somewhere he found it.