Richard Herring, What Is Love Anyway?, Grand Opera House, York, February 4 (From York Press)

Richard Herring, What Is Love Anyway?, Grand Opera House, York, February 4

10:40am Friday 27th January 2012 in Comedy

Comedian Richard Herring thought he should go for a really big subject after politics and religion. So he turned his comic gaze on love, as he tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON

FOR his text for his latest sermon on a troublesome big subject, comedian Richard Herring has drawn on an unlikely source. Howard Jones, the earnest Eighties pop purveyor.

“Does anybody love anybody anyway?” mused the Welsh poet-philosopher on his 1983 number two hit, What Is Love.

“Finally someone dares to answer,” says Richard Herring, cultural iconoclast, York City supporter and former Pocklington school boy, who asks “What Is Love Anyway” in his new touring show at the Grand Opera House, York, next Saturday.

Having sorted out religion (Christ On A Bike), politics (Hitler Moustache) and penises (Talking Cock), the loquacious star of the award-winning podcast As It Occurs To Me and BBC Radio 4’s Richard Herring’s Objective now seeks to define and destroy love. Before love destroys him. Again.

“Why do a show about love? I thought I had to go for a really big subject after doing the big subjects of politics and religion, so I felt it had to be love,” says Richard.

“The challenge was to try to describe love and find out if it’s real, but really it’s just an excuse for me to talk about my successes and failures in love – and as usual with my shows, the material is mainly at my expense.”

As it happens, 44-year-old Richard is happily in love right now, should you be wondering. “I’ve been with my girlfriend for four years,” he says.

He admits that the essence of love, the stuff of myriad books, poems, plays, films, songs and letters, is impossible to contain in one show.

“I don’t think that in the 90 minutes I’m on stage I’ll nail it,” he says. “But rather than trying to provide answers, I like to ask questions and hopefully it will make people think about love because it’s something they tend to take for granted as it’s ephemeral and ‘ungrabbable’.”

Why does Richard want to “destroy love”, anyway? “It’s just a funny starting point for the show, when you’ve been through life and love has smacked you down. Destroying love is a funny conceit and obviously I wouldn’t really want to destroy it as my girlfriend would kill me,” he says.

“But it’s interesting to see if you can take love down, having had a look at Christ and religion and Hitler and Fascism.”

Richard last played York on his Christ On A Bike: The Second Coming tour last March, when he performed two shows in a day in City Screen’s compact basement bar. This time, he has switched to the much larger Grand Opera House: testament to the power of love.

“Out of all the shows I’ve done, it’s this one that’s appealed to people the most, partly because they will identify with it more than the others, as I’m talking about my foibles… and we all have those,” he says.

Amid the foibles and fumbles, the show also accommodates a couple of “sensitive stories”, including Richard reflecting on the love he feels for his grandma. “I think comedy is about surprise, and as much as I like to do the controversial stuff, it’s good to do the lyrical side too, like I did in The Headmaster’s Son show in 2009,” he says.

He believes his candour is paying off. “With most comedians, the last thing they will do is talk about their feelings when they’re putting on a show and trying to look cool and edgy, but I look out at the audience and I’ll see 18 year olds who know me from my podcasts and 70 years olds who’ve come to my theatre shows over the years,” says Richard.

He is happier analysing whether a note pinned to his laundry, saying “We love our customers”, genuinely means his dry-cleaner loves him, instead of joining the vogue for peddling “comedy of nostalgia and recognition”.

“That’s something I would do in the pub with friends, rather than having a comedian reminding me of things I’ve done or things that I know already,” he says.

“For me, comedy is not just about politics and philosophy, but also about surprising other people and myself.”

Hence his love of performing and near-constant touring. “That’s the job of the comedian, the live stuff. I’ve done ten tours of my own shows and over the last few years that’s been my main source of income. Comedy comes down to being in a room and creating something on that night, whether I’m playing to 100 people or 1,000. I want to keep moving, keep challenging myself.”

Come February 14, Richard must contemplate once more whether a romantic gesture involving Ferrero Rochers is spinning dangerously out of control. “Every year, I give my girlfriend Ferrero Rocher chocolates on Valentine’s Day,” he says. “But to keep it romantic I have to double the number of boxes each year, so there could be problems ahead from that promise!”

• Richard Herring, What Is Love Anyway?, Grand Opera House, York, February 4, 8pm. Tickets: £16 on 0844 871 3024 or online at atgtickets.com/york