Richard Herring's new radio sitcom on Radio 4 starts on Wednesday, Sept 6th at 11:30.
I'm definitely going to check it out. Anyone else?
Relativity
I remember hearing about this a few months ago. A crazy idea for a sitcom. I could imagine it being difficult to get to work on TV. Maybe that's why it's on the radio. As someone who's trying to write sitcoms myself it'll be interesting to see how he gets the plots to work. It'll either be great or terrible in my opinion. I'm leaning towards the latter.
Could be. I'm willing to give it a chance. I'm actually more optimistic about this radio thing going over well than I am about his TV sitcom pilot getting a full series. The man seems destined not to get back on telly, sadly (but he has the internet on lockdown, so I think he'll be fine business-wise). I'll be happy if the TV pilot is good and gets a series, and the fact that Rich seems to have a minimal acting role in the TV one probably bodes well. He seems to fancy himself a decent actor but his choice to play a minimal role in the TV sitcom pilot is probably wise. He's funny, and a good writer, but he's not an outstanding actor.
The first episode was pretty good, I thought. I wasn't really laughing much, but I liked the characters and the pace and it seems pretty well set up now. I'll be interested to see where it goes next week. Really good cast, too.
Check it out!
Missed it. Checked on BBC radio 4 at 11.30 and couldn't find it on the TV guide either. Also checked BBC iPlayer as well. What time was it on? Referring back to my previous post where I said it was a crazy idea. Is this the sitcom about parallel universes or is that a different sitcom he's been working on? If I can find it I'll still check it out.
Update - just found it. 
Parallel universes one is the TV one called Everything Happens For No Reason, I believe, or as I'm assuming the cool kids will call it, EHFNR. I thought the two projects were related for a while but I don't think they are. Unless someone knows differently.
What did you think of the episode? I don't get TV iPlayer from the US but I get the radio version fortunately. I've been more and more into radio in the past few months.
Just has a listen. Could be good but as with all initial episodes it suffers from having to set everything up. I am going to go back for more and see what happens.
Finally gave it a listen. Wasn't overly impressed by it. Seemed like your average run of the mill sitcom. few big laughs. At one point one of the characters even explained why it was called Relativity. I never would have understood the link otherwise. Herring's a decent stand-up but as a sitcom writer I'm not convinced. If he gets the green light on his other sitcom that sounds more interesting, I might be proven wrong. Maybe after the first episode it'll get better now the setting up's out of the way.
It wasn't terrible, but I found my interest wavering after 10 mins.
I didn't honestly laugh at all in the first episode (apart from the looooong running Richard Herring in jokes like do-ri-toss, and his character being called Ian) but I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes next now that it's pretty well setup. I think it could be good. We'll see!
Pretty average so far. Herring has about 50 lines/jokes in his career and just reuses them endlessly. He is also a TERRIBLE actor and shame that his ego meant that he has taken a major role in this show. The other "real" actors on it must be cringing at his efforts. Also, if you follow his blog, you know that he never knuckles down and works on his material, he admits that he leaves it to the last moment and then throws it together and hopes for the best. Very unprofessional.
I love Mr. Herring but this was just bad. I lasted 13 minutes before realising I hadn't laughed once, not even internally.
I'm a huge fan of Rich's podcasts - RHLSTP, AIOTM and Collings & Herrin are brilliant and I read his "Warming Up" blog every day. But his recent work reeks of laziness. Today's Relativity episode was pretty much a direct retelling of an event that happened to him a couple of years back. Even a lot of the names are the same. I'm sure it was very funny when you were there and it happened as an actual event in your life, but that doesn't make it a comedy script. Disappointing.
I'm not too bothered that this episode was a retelling of something that happened to him a couple of years back. Is it lazy? Maybe, but if he didn't do the daily blog or talk about his personal life in his podcasts, then would it seem lazy? We'd have no idea when he'd written it. My guess is that he did indeed write the series or the bulk of it several years ago. Makes sense with the 'what is loooooove anyway' stuff and with his marriage/relationship etc. I don't think it's quite fair to blame him or call him lazy just based off the fact that he's so forthcoming about his personal life. I mean, it is a bit lazy, but...yeah, I don't mind.
I liked this week's episode quite a bit. Lots of gags, a decent amount of chuckles, and it's going in an interesting direction. The characters are well defined, they're somewhat interesting, and the premise seems to be playing out into some sort of coherent and possibly thoughtful/philosophical plotline. I like the grandma.
It's not knock-em-dead brilliant, but I'll keep listening. It ain't half bad.
Yes I'll stick with it and hope for the best. In Rich's best work there is usually an exponential increase in call backs and in-jokes as the episodes go on and the last one is an insanely complex tangled work of genius (see last ep of AIOTM series 3). Or maybe it will just end with his character marrying someone called Catie, having a baby called Phoebe, moving to the country, getting a dog called Wolfie, etc etc etc.
Let's hope it's not an exact memoir. I think he can be more creative than that. I like the increasingly complex callbacks. They do seem to be building. I still love the madness that was the jumbled up mixed callback storm of silliness in the final couple episodes of TMWRNJ. AIOTM s3 at the end as well. That's what I like to see/hear from Rich (and Stew when he does the same thing, just in his own style. they still share a surprising number of comedic habits)