Richard Herring to tour to Bristol Old Vic with first stand-up show in six years

Richard Herring will return to stand up for the first time in six years with a brand new show, Can I Have My Ball Back?

The 34-date tour takes in dates at Bristol's Old Vic Theatre, with dates at other major theatres across the UK.

Image: Richard Herring

In 2021, Richard Herring went to his GP to find out why his right testicle seemed to be growing bigger. It turned out that he had testicular cancer and one month later he was lying in hospital waiting to have his murderous ball removed. Would he survive? (No spoilers!). For a comedian who had done a whole show on male genitalia (Talking Cock) and written a book about toxic masculinity (The Problem With Men) this felt like some cruel trick of fate. In his much-anticipated return to stand-up after six years, Richard talks bollocks and answers the question on everyone’s lips: Is a severed gonad in a jar a fitting prize to bring in for Taskmaster?

Richard Herring enjoys continual success as both a writer and performer and is widely known an innovator in the world of podcasts, dubbed the “The Podfather” (The Guardian), “King of the Internet” (Time Out) and “The UK’s online comedy pioneer” (The Times) for his perennially popular RHLSTP podcast, where he chats with hilarious star guests for improvised chat, revelations and big laughs. RHLSTP offers fascinating (many times national newspaper-worthy) insights into Richard’s guests over the hour of refreshingly frank and free flowing conversation and is the only podcast to always ask a question you never knew you wanted to know the answer to. Previous guests include Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Katherine Ryan, Greg Davies, Dawn French, Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Merchant, Russell Howard, Romesh Ranganathan, Bridget Christie, Grayson Perry, Rob Delaney, Richard E. Grant, Charlie Brooker, Rose Matafeo, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Les Dennis, James Acaster, Richard Ayoade, Sarah Millican, Steve Coogan, John Oliver, Mary Beard, Michael Sheen, Jonathan Ross and Bob Mortimer. RHLSTP regularly gets a million downloads a month, has won four Chortle Internet Comedy Awards and is the only non-BBC show to win a Sony Best Comedy Award.

As one half of the comedy duo Lee & Herring, Richard wrote and performed in shows such as Lionel Nimrod’s Inexplicable World (BBC Radio 4), Fist of Fun (BBC Radio 1/BBC Two) and This Morning with Richard Not Judy (BBC Two). With Al Murray, Richard devised and wrote 37 episodes of the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please (Sky One/Paramount) for Al’s alter ego The Pub Landlord.  Richard also wrote and starred in the comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends (ITV1), wrote and performed two series of Richard Herring’s Objective for BBC Radio 4. The fourth and final series of Richard’s popular comedy drama, Relativity, aired on BBC Radio 4 last year.

Richard was the winner of series 10 of Taskmaster and last year’s Taskmaster Champion of Champions. He’s also won a House of Games Champion of Champions trophy. And it only took him four goes to win Pointless. He has previously appeared as a guest on shows including Alan Davies’ As Yet Untitled (Dave), Argumental (Dave), Set List (Sky Atlantic), Roast Battle (Comedy Central), Have I Got News For You (BBC One) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC Two).

A prolific writer, Richard has written and published ten books, including Can I Have My Ball Back?, Richard Herring’s Would You Rather?, The Problem with Men: When is it International Men’s Day? (and why it matters), Emergency Questions: 1001 conversation-savers for any situation, Emergency Questions, Christmas Emergency Questions, How Not to Grow Up, Talking Cock, Warming Up Vol 1: Bye Bye Balham and Warming Up Vol 2: The Box Lady and Other Pesticles.