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This month, we take an in depth look at the radio careers of two popular comedians during the nineties and see what lies ahead for them in the future.
Lee and Herring first started working together in the
last century, during the 1980s, and cut their
broadcast writing teeth on Radio 4's Flagship Topical
Satirical Cutting Edge Comedy Programme, Week Ending.
Week Ending began life in 1970, and continued it's
glorious reign for 28 years, until evil Radio 4
Controller, James Boyle, killed it off in April 1998,
some 28 years after it began.
In it's hey day, Week Ending was an important stepping
stone, a metaphorical diving board, for literally
dozens of successful comedy performers, producers and
writers, many of whom went on to metaphorically swim
in the metaphorical pool we call popular
entertainment. Lee and Herring's involvement with the
programme gave them a healthy disliking for all things
satire. "It seemed like forever," says Mr. Herring,
"but it was actually only around a year (maybe a year
and a half) I think. By the end it drove me so insane
that I used to hide in some plastic boxes in the
writer's room to try and escape having to do any
work."
Eventually, they went on to parody the show itself
when in 1991, they wrote a sketch for On The Hour
about a show called 'Thank God It's Satire-Day!',
which they portrayed as filled with tiresome and
irrelevant Robin Hood pastiches. 'On The Hour'
brought together a group of performers whose influence
on today's comedy output cannot be understated, and
whose paycheques (or indeed egos) today would not all
fit into the same room. The team together constitute
a generation of comedy writers and performers who have
gone on to be involved in some of the most important
comedy programmes of the decade: Chris Morris, Steve
Coogan, Peter Baynham, David Schneider, Patrick
Marber, Rebecca Front, Doon MacKichan, Armando
Ianucci, and of course Lee and Herring.
The basic premise of the programme was that it was
comedy about news. Not about what happened in the news
- a service already provided by too many poor quality
topical shows - but about how the news is produced and
presented. Richard contends that their contribution
to the show was quite significant. "I think that
although we wrote about a third of the first series of
'On the Hour' and slightly less of the second (partly
because it was largely produced while Stewart was up
in Edinburgh), we certainly created much of the tone
of the show. It is very difficult to actually say how
much anyone contributed to the creation of the
concept. It was such a group thing. I think our input
was less than Stewart now believes, but more than
Armando believes. But it's hard to remember."
The programme ran for two series, one in 1991 and the
second in 1992, with a Christmas special in between.
After the second series, preparations began for a
transfer to BBC2 television under the new title of The
Day Today. Around this time, the much-publicised
dispute between Lee and Herring and the rest of the
cast arose. Richard Herring takes on the story.
"Basically when it went to TV we were offered a 13
minute a show commission (which would have been a lot
of money for us in those days), but no credit for
having co-created the series and the characters. Our
manager (Jon Thoday) felt that Armando was rushing to
get the project on TV without getting the best deal
(both in terms of money and ownership of the project).
As we were given no ownership of the project he felt
we should withdraw. I was personally gutted by this
at the time, as I was poor and thought we were being
bumped out of something that could have been the new
Monty Python!
The BBC Radio Collection has released a double-audio
cassette of On The Hour, but this tape is not a true
reflection of the original content of the programme.
Again, Richard explains. "Because of the way we wrote
together and ideas were improvised around, it was very
hard for Armando to edit us out. He tried very hard -
even changing names we'd made up by inserting place
names in as surnames. Like I say, we invented the idea
of Peter O'etc and wrote practically all the material
for Monsignor Treeb- Lopez (though not the name) [I
must say Stewart completely created the tone of that
character - especially the kind of "nibble nuts"
stuff. I wrote some broader stuff for it, then in
series 2 Patrick badly copied our style to write some
more] We also wrote nearly all the material for Rosie
May and Alan Partridge, so established a tone that
other people then wrote for. So yes, it was
impossible to eradicate us completely and the whole
thing was over something pathetic like £50 and Arm was
up for about 3 nights re-editing. If I had been him
I'd just have given us £50 myself."
Speaking of Lee and Herring, they continued with their
Radio 4 success in 1992 by suddenly appearing on Radio
4, saying words that they had written in 'Lionel
Nimrod's Inexplicable World'. The eponymous hero of
the programme, Lionel Nimrod (played by Tom Baker),
was a washed-up sixties sci-fi who apparently played
"Mackay the Morloi" in the cult series "Star Ark".
Where do they get these wacky names? "I think we
rather craply just slightly changed Leonard Nimoy's
name to get Lionel Nimrod."
The series was billed as "new age comedy" and each
week investigated a different mysterious theme: 'The
Human Mind', 'Monsters, Ghosts and UFOs', 'Death and
the Afterlife' etc. Each programme featured a mixture
of one-liners, character dialogue and sketches
disguised as reports. "It was originally called
'Lionel Nimrod's Spooky World'" says Rich, "and me and
Stu were called different names ['Barry Crustings' and
'Francis Souza', according to KRFS sources] and there
was a character called Amanda Decadent in it. It was
like a Word spoof or something terrible like that. I
think the BBC were making us do stuff like that to
begin with and then we rebelled against it- they kept
changing their mind anyway. The series was only made
because Sarah Smith threatened to resign if it
wasn't."
Every episode ended with some kind of solid
conclusion: for example, in 'Love', the episode
finishes with the discovery that love is the smell of
spaghetti. Herring and Lee played most parts, with
other boy parts played by Armando Iannucci, and all
girl parts played by Rebecca Front. One regular
character, appearing to provide the last piece of the
puzzle every week was Peter Fenn [played by Armando],
with his 'Hammond Organ Believe It Or Not File'. Are
there any plans to resurrect Peter? "No." The first
series was broadcast in 1992, with the second
appearing the year later, and was partially repeated
on the funkier radio channel, Radio 1, as a precursor
to Lee and Herring's next broadcast phenomenon, Lee
and Herring's Fist of Fun.
Lee and Herring's Fist of Fun appeared on Radio 1 in
1993, establishing Lee and Herring's trademark
character-based humour. The series was recorded at
different university venues each week, with a mixture
of sketches, topical gags, and character humour.
First appearances on this programme included Peter
Dibdin the Driving Instructor, The Two Very Different
Teachers, and the world premier of the glorious
'Gnat's Chuff' joke.
Another strong feature of 'Lee and Herring's Fist of
Fun' was the emergence of the 26 year old bed-sit
dwelling Welsh Virgin Peter Baynham, who appeared
regularly as a tragic lifestyle advisor. The character
of Peter Baynham was written and performed by comedian
Peter Baynham, who didn't stop to consider the
implications of using his own name for such a sad,
lonely character. Regular appearances were made by
Rebecca Front, Ronnie Ancona and Jo Unwin, who played
the girl parts, and Alistair McGowan, Kevin Eldon and
John Thompson, who all went on to appear in various
guises on the 'Fist of Fun' television show, whose
basic style was based on this programme.
The very last dip the Lee and Herring Funsters had
into the Planet of Radio Mirth was the Lee and Herring
Show, their Radio 1 show that ran for three series -
one in 1994, and two in 1995. The tone and content of
the programme can be briefly summed up by one of their
jingles: "Lee and Herring: Jokes, Swearing, and eight
or nine slightly irritating records", but I've never
been one for brevity.
The Lee and Herring Show was a result of Radio 1's
move away from half hour comedy shows, towards shows
that mixed comedy and music. The programme was
produced by Light Entertainment, and therefore, as
Stewart endlessly pointed out, they had to bring in
their own records. This gave Stew - an obsessive
music fan who measures his record collection by length
- the opportunity to show off some of the more surreal
parts of his record collection, with notable examples
including Leonard Nimoy's 'Bilbo Baggins' and The
Flying Picket's version of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen
Spirit'.
The first series brought the first trickle of letters
from what was to become the very loyal and dedicated
fan base Lee and Herring have today. Every week, Rich
and Stew made a plea for people to "send stuff in",
usually linked to the theme of that week's phone-in.
By the end of Series Two
Mr. Stewart Graham Lee and Mr. Richard Keith Herring
are well known to us as the cheeky funsters who made
appearances on Sunday Morning telly with their
hilarious parodies of the holy bible, and their
blasphemous claims to be the new Jesus Christ. But
behind all the fun, there is a history. A history
stretching back as far as the late 1980s, to the outer
reaches of the BBC Home Service. You may not know
this to look at them, but these crazy comics began
their lives on the radio. Oh yes indeedy.
One thing I clearly remember though was that I was
lying in bed listening to Radio 4 when I heard a
reporter of the Today programme being asked about the
details of the Maastricht Treaty, which he clearly
hadn't read and he was badly busking his way through
it. I went in and told Armando about this and me and
Stewart wrote up some notes for the cast to improvise
around. The sketch - the first appearance of Peter
O'Hanrahahanrahan - was chosen for Pick of the Week,
but the writing credit was given to Armando and
Patrick. When I challenged Arm about this he said "Oh,
but you just heard it on the radio".
As this was the genesis of much of the material on the
show that seemed a bit of a crap argument and was the
beginning of our belittlement in the project. And that
found its way on to TV. And we got no credit - though
I think it's clear from our other work that it is
"such" a Lee and Herring idea. That's just an
example."
The next escapade the Lee and Herring boys got
involved in was the little known Radio 4 late night
student series 'The End of the Roadshow', a series
consisting of four programmes broadcast across the
divide of 1991 and 1992. Each episode was recorded at
a different university, and was set up as a pastiche
of the Radio 1 Roadshow. The contents were billed as
consisting of "a shoddy competition, off-the-cuff
repartee with the audience, a look at the problems of
being young, and facts about the town we're in". The
programme was a rather mundane, run of the mill
Radio 4 affair, fronted by Tony Hawkes, Neil
Mullarkey, Nick Hancock and Rebecca Front. It is only
worthy of note as this was the first series written
entirely by the now highly successful partnership of
Richard 'Rich' Herring and Stewart 'Stew' Lee.