Lee and Herring

Lee and Herring were a British standup comedy double act consisting of the comedians Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. They were most famous for their work on television, most notably Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy but had been working together on stage and on radio since the late 1980s. The choice of name possibly derives from 'Lea & Perrins', a UK brand of Worcestershire Sauce.

As with many double acts, Lee and Herring performed as contrasting personalities: one mature and straight-laced (Lee) and the other puerile and cheeky (Herring). As with several other double acts, Lee and Herring had a certain irony to their style and constantly checked themselves and made reference to this. The characters of Lee and Herring were parodies and exaggerations of their real life selves.

In 2011, Frank Skinner cited Lee & Herring as one of his favourite comedy double acts, alongside Laurel and Hardy, The Two Ronnies and Reeves and Mortimer.

History

Lee and Herring first met at a party while they were studying at Oxford University. Lee had been performing comedy on the circuit for a short while and had heard that Herring had begun doing similar so he introduced himself. Lee once remarked that one of the reasons they decided to work as a double act was that they found the resemblance of the title "Lee and Herring" to worcestershire sauce brand Lea & Perrins humorous.

Lee and Herring (radio series)

Lee and Herring was a British radio series broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1994 and 1995, named after the comedy double act who hosted it, Lee and Herring.

The show ran for three series and a total of nineteen hour-long episodes. It followed on from their previous Radio 1 series, Fist of Fun, and was one of a number of comedy and music shows being produced for Radio 1 at the time: other notable examples being shows hosted by Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci. The fact that the bulk of the show was live, and to some extent unscripted, gave the programmes a more relaxed feel, with the presenters somewhere in between their genuine personalities and the comic personas adopted for their act. The show was produced by Chris Neill, Sarah Smith and Kathy Smith.

The series served as a testing ground for new ideas, and many of the characters and items introduced in the series were adapted for later television projects. Lee and Herring were keen to pursue a fourth series, but Radio 1 ceased its comedy output at the beginning of 1997.