THIS is the best Herring you can find in York city centre right now.

Richard Herring, mischievous son of a Pocklington head teacher, perennial York City fan and the Podfather of podcasters, is back on home turf with The Best, a 60-minute pick of the his favourite routines from his 12 one-man shows.

The cult comedian's cult comedian, Herring will be offering an introduction to newcomers to his Fringe shows and a greatest hits feeding frenzy for long-term Herring devotees.

"I'm not taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe; I'm taking it on tour; I've decided to take a year off Edinburgh to have a little break from coming up with new material," says Richard, who turned 49 on July 12. "It's nice to have a fallow year after 12 different shows and doing Talking C**k for three year and Christ On A Bike for two tours over the past 15 years."

In that time, Richard has accumulated 20 hours of material, which he first revisited last year. "I did each of the shows over six weekends last August and September in The 12 Shows Of Herring at the Leicester Square Theatre in London and it showed me there was a lot of stuff I hadn't done for years that was really good, or I could rejig material, such as from the latest show, Happy Now?," he says.

"This time, for The Best, I don't think I'll be doing so much from the recent shows but stuff from shows that I'd forgotten, let alone anyone else could remember. It's not Shakespeare by any means, but it's fun to do something again where I don't think that way any more now my life is very different from when I was a depressed and angry young man, but I'm impressed by how strong the early shows were, when I worked very hard on making them tight and interesting."

The 60-minute preview in York will be expanded into a 90-minute show for the tour. "I'm looking at presenting the best of the shows when they were more like stand-up shows and I'm working towards the show having a theme, working through my life in the way that my shows did," says Richard.

Whereas fans demand rock bands should perform their greatest hits, and indeed there is disappointment, even anger, if they leave them out of a live set, comedians are always expected to come up with completely new material when they tour a new show. Herring will be going against the grain by revisiting past shows, but Harring sees merit in his excavations

"I think it will be interesting to do, especially as most comedians don't have enough material to go back over, as it's not usual that their careers incorporate a vast swathe of time, but I've been performing for 30 years," he says.

"I've also been quicker than most comedians to jettison material and move on, so that's why it's revealing to revive material I haven't done for many years."

Herring has further reason for reviving the best of his past. "I've added a new audience since I've been doing my blog over the past eight years who won't know my earlier material,"  he says.

Meanwhile, he is busy writing six episodes of his podcast sketch show As It Occurs To Me and has raised £100,000 from a Kickstarter campaign to start recording it on film too. "That means I have to write it now!" he says. 

Richard Herring: The Best, preview, Great Yorkshire Fringe, White Rose Rotunda spiegeltent, Parliament Street, York, July 26, 7pm; Richard Herring's Great Yorkshire Fringe Podcast, same spiegeltent, same night, 8.30pm, guests to be announced. Box office: greatyorkshirefringe.com