Collings and Herrin (podcast)
Encyclopedia
The Collings and Herrin Podcast was a topical podcast
produced by broadcaster Andrew Collins
and comedian Richard Herring
. Its title derives from the recurring Richard Herring trope of misspelling names for comic effect.
Described as a "sideways look at the news", the podcast was discursive
and based mainly on humorous analysis of the week's media coverage. It is light in tone but often veers into black comedy
and crude humour as satire
. There are frequent uses of strong language and it was described by a review in The Times
as unsuitable for "sensitive souls".
A typical episode length is one hour, six minutes and thirty-six seconds, due to this being the maximum length of a GarageBand
recording, the software normally used to record the podcast. The podcast is made for and hosted by the British Comedy Guide
and is also distributed via iTunes
.
On July 26, 2008, the podcast was named "Podcast of the Week" by the Times Newspaper and in November 2009, was regularly being downloaded by 23,000 listeners a week, with some episodes peaking at 29,000 listeners. The Guardian noted that the podcast captured "the spirit of Derek and Clive
."
radio show. These segments would often end with corpsing
.
Collins and Herring have mentioned that they had felt constrained by BBC
guidelines and had wanted to produce a darker, more humorous segment with a longer runtime. The idea of producing an independent podcast was first mooted publicly on Collins' blog on the 14th January 2008, leading to a number of comments in support of the idea.
The first Collings and Herrin Podcast went live on 1 February 2008.
In June 2011, the podcast was announced to be on hiatus
due to bad feelings between the pair. Andrew took an opportunity to host their old Saturday 6Music slot with another comedian, Josie Long
, which Richard considered a betrayal of their double act
. The podcast was resurrected on 4 November 2011 for podcast 167, but on 21 November the podcast ended permanently due to Andrew Collins feeling it was time to end the project.
, London
, Lincoln
, Cardiff
and more Edinburgh Festival shows. During 2009 these were often presented alongside Andrew Collins' solo 60 minute Secret Dancing performances. On 1 February 2010, the second anniversary of their first podcast, the pair performed their "100th" podcast (in actuality their 105th) to a sell-out crowd at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.
Radio: In January 2010 it was announced that the duo (as "Collins and Herring" rather than "Collings and Herrin") would be filling in for Adam and Joe
on BBC 6 Music from the 30th January. Their residency continued until April 2011. Each week the highlights were released as podcasts on the BBC website.
CD: On 22 March 2010 they released a CD of exclusive podcasts called Collings and Herrin: The Best of Earth, Wind and Fire* *(and water) through Go Faster Stripe
. A second CD called Collings and Herrin: War and Peace, Crime and Punishment was released through Go Faster Stripe
on December 15th 2010.
Vodcast: A number of video podcasts have been released parallel to the official podcast count. These are usually released as bonus features on Richard Herring comedy DVD
s.
Bootleg
: A bootleg recording of "legendary" Podcast 123 rescued this installment from permanent loss
: This episode, recorded live at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival, is dubbed "legendary" in that technical problems ruined the official podcast recording and resulted in an audience evacuation towards the end of the show. For three weeks, the podcast was assumed lost until a fan came forward with a bootleg recording of poor but serviceable sound quality.
campaign, spreading the message "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" after a so-named member of the public from Macedonia
used Richard Herring's name as the primary key for his Facebook
page.
T-shirt
s were printed, Anderson-themed music videos were circulated on YouTube
and many personalities (such as Stephen Moffat) added the phrase to their websites. #virgilioanderson became the second most popular trending topic on Twitter
on Thursday 2 July 2009 and the words "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" were scribbled in the grouting of the tiles in a toilet cubicle at the British Library (the cubicle second from the left in the east wing, first floor) on 16 July 2009.
Little is known of the true identity of Virgilio Anderson but information on his interests, favourite books and political beliefs were visible at his Facebook page, before it was deleted.
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
produced by broadcaster Andrew Collins
Andrew Collins (broadcaster)
Andrew Collins is the creator and writer of Radio 4 sitcom Mr Blue Sky. His TV writing work includes EastEnders and the sitcoms Grass and Not Going Out .-Personal life:Collins was a member of the Labour Party between the late 1980s and early 1990s, leaving after Labour's...
and comedian Richard Herring
Richard Herring
Richard Keith Herring is a British comedian and writer, whose early work includes his involvement in the double-act, Lee and Herring...
. Its title derives from the recurring Richard Herring trope of misspelling names for comic effect.
Described as a "sideways look at the news", the podcast was discursive
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
and based mainly on humorous analysis of the week's media coverage. It is light in tone but often veers into black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
and crude humour as satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
. There are frequent uses of strong language and it was described by a review in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
as unsuitable for "sensitive souls".
A typical episode length is one hour, six minutes and thirty-six seconds, due to this being the maximum length of a GarageBand
GarageBand
GarageBand is a software application for Mac OS X and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as a part of the iLife software package on Mac OS X.-Audio recording:...
recording, the software normally used to record the podcast. The podcast is made for and hosted by the British Comedy Guide
British Comedy Guide
The British Comedy Guide or BCG is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media. At the time of writing, the BCG has published guides to more than 1,200 individual British comedies - primarily TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, variety...
and is also distributed via iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
.
On July 26, 2008, the podcast was named "Podcast of the Week" by the Times Newspaper and in November 2009, was regularly being downloaded by 23,000 listeners a week, with some episodes peaking at 29,000 listeners. The Guardian noted that the podcast captured "the spirit of Derek and Clive
Derek and Clive
Derek and Clive is a double act of comedic characters created by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in the 1970s. The performances were captured on the records Derek and Clive , Derek and Clive Come Again , and Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam , as well as in a film documentary, Derek and Clive Get the Horn...
."
History
Between 10 April 2005 and 25 March 2007, Richard Herring would review the week's newspapers on Andrew Collins' BBC 6 MusicBBC 6 Music
BBC 6 Music is one of the BBC's digital radio stations, was launched on 11 March 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years....
radio show. These segments would often end with corpsing
Corpsing
Corpsing is a British theatrical slang term used to describe when an actor unintentionally breaks character during a scene by laughing or by causing another cast member to laugh...
.
Collins and Herring have mentioned that they had felt constrained by BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
guidelines and had wanted to produce a darker, more humorous segment with a longer runtime. The idea of producing an independent podcast was first mooted publicly on Collins' blog on the 14th January 2008, leading to a number of comments in support of the idea.
The first Collings and Herrin Podcast went live on 1 February 2008.
In June 2011, the podcast was announced to be on hiatus
Hiatus
Hiatus may refer to:*Recess *Hiatus, a small difference in pitch between two musical tones *Hiatus , a phonological term referring to the lack of a consonant separating two vowels in separate syllables, as in co-operation*Hiatus , a break of several weeks or more in television scheduling*Hiatus...
due to bad feelings between the pair. Andrew took an opportunity to host their old Saturday 6Music slot with another comedian, Josie Long
Josie Long
Josie Long is an English comedian.-Background:Long spent her early life in Orpington, South East London, where she attended Newstead Wood School for Girls in Swift House. She also attended GIFT Ltd. summer schools. She began performing stand-up comedy at 14, winning the BBC New Comedy Awards at...
, which Richard considered a betrayal of their double act
Double act
A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
. The podcast was resurrected on 4 November 2011 for podcast 167, but on 21 November the podcast ended permanently due to Andrew Collins feeling it was time to end the project.
In other media
Live shows: An unusual development for a podcast has been a number of recordings with a live audience, the first being on 6 August 2008 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and others following in BrightonBrighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....
, Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
and more Edinburgh Festival shows. During 2009 these were often presented alongside Andrew Collins' solo 60 minute Secret Dancing performances. On 1 February 2010, the second anniversary of their first podcast, the pair performed their "100th" podcast (in actuality their 105th) to a sell-out crowd at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.
Radio: In January 2010 it was announced that the duo (as "Collins and Herring" rather than "Collings and Herrin") would be filling in for Adam and Joe
Adam and Joe (radio show)
Adam and Joe is a Sony Award winning radio show on BBC 6 Music presented by Adam and Joe; comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish. The show began in October 2007 and runs for three hours in a Saturday morning slot, originally from 9:00am to 12:00pm before moving to 10:00am to 1:00pm...
on BBC 6 Music from the 30th January. Their residency continued until April 2011. Each week the highlights were released as podcasts on the BBC website.
CD: On 22 March 2010 they released a CD of exclusive podcasts called Collings and Herrin: The Best of Earth, Wind and Fire* *(and water) through Go Faster Stripe
Go Faster Stripe
Go Faster Stripe is an independent film production and distribution company that operates out of the Chapter Arts Centre, in Cardiff, Wales. The company specialises in the recording of live shows by stand-up comedians who, while in the public eye, may not normally be able to get a DVD released...
. A second CD called Collings and Herrin: War and Peace, Crime and Punishment was released through Go Faster Stripe
Go Faster Stripe
Go Faster Stripe is an independent film production and distribution company that operates out of the Chapter Arts Centre, in Cardiff, Wales. The company specialises in the recording of live shows by stand-up comedians who, while in the public eye, may not normally be able to get a DVD released...
on December 15th 2010.
Vodcast: A number of video podcasts have been released parallel to the official podcast count. These are usually released as bonus features on Richard Herring comedy DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s.
Bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
: A bootleg recording of "legendary" Podcast 123 rescued this installment from permanent loss
Lost episode
A lost episode of a television series or radio series is one which is, or was at one point, not available for rerun or release on home video or DVD. In some cases, the term is something of a misnomer, used to describe an episode that for any number of reasons was not aired in its original...
: This episode, recorded live at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival, is dubbed "legendary" in that technical problems ruined the official podcast recording and resulted in an audience evacuation towards the end of the show. For three weeks, the podcast was assumed lost until a fan came forward with a bootleg recording of poor but serviceable sound quality.
Themes and running jokes
- Humour is mainly derived from the week's media coverage, particularly that of the tabloid newspapers. A favourite source of comedy has been the right-wing writing of Sun columnist Jon GauntJon GauntJonathan Charles Gaunt , is an English radio talk show presenter, TV Personality, newspaper columnist, social commentator and spokesman....
and Daily Mail columnist Richard LittlejohnRichard LittlejohnRichard William Littlejohn is an English author, broadcaster and journalist. He is noted for his Conservative views and currently writes a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail....
.
- Aside from media commentary, there are interpersonal running jokes. There is an ongoing parody of sexual tensionSexual tensionSexual tension is a social phenomenon that occurs when two people interact and one or both feel sexual desire, but the consummation is postponed or never happens....
as a plot devicePlot deviceA plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
: Herring often suggests that he harbours amorous feelings for his co-presenter and discusses situations in which a seduction (or even a rapeRapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
) might occur. Despite this layer of their relationship, a further running joke is that Collins and Herring are categorically colleagues and not friends.
- While on the podcast, Herring describes himself as the "Podcast Richard Herring": an alter-ego of the real Richard Herring afflicted with a Tourettes-like tendency to take jokes too far. Given that Herring often doesn't listen to the podcast and immediately forgets what took place during the recording, he has said that "maybe malign spirits possess me for 66 minutes and 36 seconds, meaning I have little to no memory of anything we talked about."
- For several early episodes, Collins reported a fascination with various examples of cottaging graffiti that he was finding between the tiles of the British Library toilets. Subsequently, encouraged by Herring, the words "Collings is a Bummer" became a widespread toilet-wall meme, and fans can still find them scrawled in grouting across the country.
- In one episode, Herring describes the act of facial ejaculation, including the appreciative sound one might make while on the receiving end: "nyum nyum nyum". This joke has subsequently been incorporated as a catchphrase in the podcast but also leaked into other work, such as their BBC 6 MusicBBC 6 MusicBBC 6 Music is one of the BBC's digital radio stations, was launched on 11 March 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years....
show. Another catchphrase from Herring: "Andrew Collings is a fucking idiot," has appeared several times in the BBC 6 MusicBBC 6 MusicBBC 6 Music is one of the BBC's digital radio stations, was launched on 11 March 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years....
show as the toned-down "Andrew Collins is a fricking idiot", and is the only catchphrase to be have been included and then withdrawn from their collection of T-shirt designs.
- Following a controversy in the sixthStrictly Come Dancing (Series 6)The sixth series of Strictly Come Dancing began on BBC One on 20 September 2008, with Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly returning as presenters, and Craig Revel Horwood, Arlene Phillips, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli returning as judges....
season of Strictly Come DancingStrictly Come DancingStrictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...
and the telephone voting irregularities of later shows both Collins and Herring have employed the shrill exclamation "I paid a pound" (and variants thereof) to decry the false sense of entitlement felt by members of the public who have paid a meagre amount of money to register their opinions.
- Andrew Collins often mentions his real-life pet subject, the Mitford SistersMitford familyThe Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
, which Herring denounces as boring and of no comedic value. Collins has produced a special solo podcast in which he delivers a lecture on this subject to a live audience.
- WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
has played a part in some episodes of the podcast: listeners would subtly or blatantly alter Wikipedia entries when both Collins and Herring suggested they do so. As a consequence, Duncan NorvelleDuncan NorvelleDuncan Norvelle is a comedian in the variety tradition who appeared on television from the early and mid-1980s. He is probably most famous for his catch phrase "Chase Me!", leading to him often being referred to as Duncan "Chase Me" Norvelle...
's page was temporarily locked to prevent people from adding various absurdities to his list of catchphrases.
Who is Virgilio Anderson?
Collins and Herring launched a culture jammingCulture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
campaign, spreading the message "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" after a so-named member of the public from Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
used Richard Herring's name as the primary key for his Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
page.
T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
s were printed, Anderson-themed music videos were circulated on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and many personalities (such as Stephen Moffat) added the phrase to their websites. #virgilioanderson became the second most popular trending topic on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
on Thursday 2 July 2009 and the words "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" were scribbled in the grouting of the tiles in a toilet cubicle at the British Library (the cubicle second from the left in the east wing, first floor) on 16 July 2009.
Little is known of the true identity of Virgilio Anderson but information on his interests, favourite books and political beliefs were visible at his Facebook page, before it was deleted.