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.
Presenters
Ostensibly the straight-man of the pair, Lee's character was that of a passive, sarcastic and often pretentious curmudgeon. He also provided a great deal of the music for the programmes (as the show was made by the Light Entertainment department, and the duo had to bring in their own records), and his rather idiosyncratic tastes made for some interesting musical interludes.
In contrast to his comic partner, Herring's persona was that of a cheerful, optimistic and naive character. He apparently contributed less music to the show, but occasionally poured scorn over Lee's odder musical selections.
Regular contributors
Peter Baynham reprised his tragic comic persona, first heard in Fist of Fun, for the new series. Portrayed as a lonely, 30-year-old unemployable virgin living in a bedsit in Balham, he was an unlikely choice for 'lifestyle guru', and was continually bullied by Herring. In the later series, the character was renamed from 'Peter Baynham' to simply 'Peter'.
A longstanding Lee and Herring contributor, Kevin Eldon read out the Listings as well as playing numerous characters in sketches. At the end of the first series he was unmasked as a hair-obsessed alien and was killed by some Immac hair remover. He returned in the second series with little explanation and resumed his role. In the third series, he took on the persona of an apparently angry but mediocre anti-establishment comic, often denouncing the government as 'fascists', to the mockery of Lee and Herring.
Characters
Numerous fictional characters were introduced during the series, many of whom later transferred to television.
- Simon Quinlank (Kevin Eldon): One of the most celebrated Lee and Herring characters was introduced in the very first show of the series. Quinlank was obsessed with doing hobbies, and each week he presented a short piece in which he described how to do one of them. However, he was clearly a very disturbed individual, and the hobbies described often involved criminal activities including vandalism, harassment, assault and arguably even murder. Quinlank despised 'nerds' - he made a point of belittling trainspotters and autograph hunters - but seemed oblivious to the fact that his dangerous obsessions placed him far further outside social norms than the subjects of his mockery. Indeed, as time went on, Quinlank became increasingly convinced of his own superiority, eventually proclaiming himself a God. The final radio installment revealed that Quinlank's personality was, in part, due to his overbearing, unloving and emotionless parents. The character transferred to television on Fist of Fun and the second series of TMWRNJ.
- Rod Hull (Kevin Eldon): Based extremely loosely upon the children's entertainer of the same name, Rod Hull first appeared in series three, during a comically feeble anti-drugs campaign featuring minor celebrities who were totally unsuited to Radio 1's demographic. Kevin Eldon apparently had a cold that particular week, and instead of an accurate Rod Hull impersonation, he produced a shrill, shrieking caricature that bore virtually no relation to the real Rod Hull. The absurdity of the character caught on, and he returned in subsequent weeks as one of Richard Herring's 'celebrity friends'. During this time, questions were continually raised as to whether the character was the real Rod Hull, or just a deranged impostor. This evolved into the incarnation of the character seen in the second series of Fist of Fun, where The False Rod Hull is an insane impersonator claiming to be the man himself. The character also made a cameo appearance in the first series of TMWRNJ, and was to have become a regular in the second series, but this idea was dropped after the real Rod Hull died shortly before the series began.
- Mr Kennedy (Stewart Lee) and Mr Harris (Richard Herring): Two very different but equally bad teachers. Mr Harris is dedicated and hard-working, but completely unable to control or win the respect of his pupils. Mr Kennedy, on the other hand, prides himself on winning their respect, but achieves very little else: his overtly anti-establishment method of teaching only results in his students failing their exams. The characters later appeared in Fist of Fun and TMWRNJ.
- The Small Boy From the McCain's Oven Chip Ad (Ronni Ancona): Or, to give him his full title, The small boy from the McCain's Oven Chip ad who says "Most excellent" in a posh voice, when obviously it's only a cool thing to say if you're American and in the Bill and Ted films. This rather self explanatory character was inspired by a child actor who delivered the incongruous line in a contemporary advertisement, and was indicative of Lee and Herring's habit of seizing upon something utterly obscure and exaggerating it to absurdity. Like Rod Hull, the character appeared in Richard Herring's anti-drugs campaign, and was later shown to be one of his 'celebrity friends'.
- Other characters based on real people and played by Kevin Eldon during the third series were Hunter from ITV's Gladiators (portrayed as slightly effeminate and obsessed with fairy cakes) and weatherman Fred Talbot (who discovered Atlantis after trying to sail his floating rubber weather map around the British Isles). He also played Peter's occasional - and incoherent - companion, The Old Man Who Drinks Medicine Outside Balham Tube Station.