Richard Herring, Christ On A Bike! The Second Coming, Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, City Screen, York, March 6 (From York Press)

Richard Herring, Christ On A Bike! The Second Coming, Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, City Screen, York, March 6

11:13am Friday 4th March 2011 in Comedy By Charles Hutchinson

HERE is how Richard Herring, comedian, York City supporter and one-time Pocklington schoolboy, sells his latest show. The one about a bicycling Jesus Christ after the one about growing an Adolf Hitler moustache.

“Jesus Christ – Son of God! Saviour of mankind! Superstar!,” the publicity machine sparks into life. “Richard Herring – Son of Keith, a retired headmaster! Once saved a spider that had become trapped in his bath, only crushing three of its legs in the process! Hosted ten episodes of a chat show about poker on a satellite channel which subsequently closed down! At first sight they have little in common. Or do they?”

In the wake of last year’s Hitler Moustache, Richard has grown a beard and re-worked his first and favourite solo work, Christ On A Bike! for The Second Coming.

“Last year the show was about Hitler. This year it’s about Jesus. I am following the career path of Pope Benedict,” he says.

Now ten years older than the Messiah when he died, Richard ponders whether he has achieved as much with his life.

“It felt the right time to have The Second Coming. It’s ten years on from when I first did it in Edinburgh, and there are lots of reasons for doing it again,” says Richard.

“It had some of my favourite routines and I’d never made a DVD of it, so I thought it would be good to do that. Once you’ve got a DVD recorded, you feel something is complete. I think we’ll be doing that in London in May, as by then there’ll be new material that people won’t have seen earlier in the tour.”

Returning to the show after ten years, Richard still had his old material to hand.

“I used to have my shows a lot more written down than I do now, so there was an early script I found and I had a couple of illegal bootleg tapes.

“One wasn’t very good quality, but it gave a good idea of an early show, and another was from later on the tour with loads of new material with a big pay-off, but it cut out three quarters of the way through, which was pretty frustrating,” he says.

At 43, Richard remains a committed atheist, but he wanted to look again at the issues that still troubled him, questions that run deeper than what happened to Lazarus the second time he died? Or why did Jesus always call Simon, “Peter”? Or how many weeks would you have to attend Roman Catholic Holy Communion before you had consumed an entire Jesus?

“My problem isn’t with Christ, but with the hypocrisy of the Christians,” he says. “Jesus is cool. It’s just all the people who follow him are such idiots. He’s like The Fonz in that respect.”

How have his views changed since 2001?

“They haven’t, but I have eased off a little bit, and it still has the same conclusion of Live And Let Live, though the original show was a little more critical of Christianity than I am now, because you get to the point where you realise things aren’t worth arguing over,” he says.

“But over the past nine years, I think we all realise that we believe in things that probably aren’t completely true.”

Richard hopes to be less judgemental.

“I originally came to do the show because I was an atheist obsessed with religion and Christ. Was I scared I might be wrong to be so dismissive, or did I secretly hope, in my heart, that I might be Jesus, back at last?” he says.

“In my atheism I want to see why I’m still so obsessed with it, and I think the important thing is to keep an open mind when society penalises you for changing your mind.

“Sometimes it’s seen as a weakness to change your mind, but part of comedy’s job is to challenge everything and religion is one of those things that’s fun and naughty to challenge.”

• Richard Herring, Christ On A Bike! The Second Coming, Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, The Basement, City Screen, York, Sunday, 4.30pm, tickets still available at £15; 7.30pm, sold out. Box office: 0871 902 5726. Herring also rides his bike into Harrogate Theatre on Monday, 01423 502116; Leeds Library, Tuesday, 0113 2440794.