The best Richard Herring’s movies

'Welcome to my folly', declared Robin Ince as he opens Nine Lessons..., his massive sell-out Rationalist Celebration of comedy and science for Christmas. With a star-studded line-up included Richard Dawkins, Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Simon Singh, Richard Herring, Gavin Osbourne, Isy Suttie, Ben Goldacre, Andrew Collins, Waen Shepherd, Christina Martin and Philip Jeays - all accompanied by Martin White and his amazing Mystery Fax Machine Chamber Orchestra. What more could you ask for?.... Oh go on then, as it's Christmas there's also interview contributions from Dara O'Briain and Javis Cocker.

Three couples spend an afternoon lunch together.

In his excellent Someone Likes Yoghurt, Herrring shares with us his world of gonorrhoea-transmiting magpies, his attempts to become successor to Pope John Paul II, and his local supermarket's utterly humiliating new checkout service: the grocery interrogation.

The Edinburgh Festival is a funny place to be... When you're not funny.

Recording of Richard Herring's "Oh Frig, I'm 50" show

It's an object of shame and pride; it can inspire laughter and fear; it's a symbol of power, yet it's incredibly fragile and weak; it can be a pound of flesh or an ounce of winkles, it can be used to express both love and hate; it creates life, it can condemn us to death... and it can do wees as well. How can one tiny flap of sponge and sinew be all these things? Though men may brag and exaggerate about their little chap, they rarely talk honestly about it or their insecurities. Whilst women celebrate their sexuality in worldwide smash The Vagina Monologues, men are twisting their genitals into the shape of hamburgers in Puppetry of the Penis. Isn't it time for the twisting to stop and the schlong celebration to begin. Isn't it time for a Vagina Monologues with balls?

After sorting out politics (Hitler Moustache), religion (Christ on a Bike), love (What is Love, Anyway?) and penises (Talking Cock) Herring's tenth consecutive stand-up show tackles the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns (apart from Jesus and that canoe bloke). Is death a tragedy or an excuse to have an extended lie-in? Are we snuffed out or forced to endure eternity without bodily pleasures? Death is inevitable, so let's laugh in its face while our hearts still beat and our jaws are still attached.

Richard Herring shares with us his mission to make something of his sad comedian's existence through a catalogue of seemingly impossible challenges. So will he succeed in running the London marathon, going skydiving, and dating 50 women in 50 nights? Or will he fail in his vain attempt to prove his superiority to the Greek demi-god? And does stealing Germaine Greer's bra strictly count as a Herculean task? Yes, I suppose it does...

Rich is single, never been married, has got no kids. Has he wasted his life? Is it time to finally grow up and get out the pipe and slippers and await the blessed release of death? Or does life really begin at 40, giving him the excuse to go around in nappies and make jokes about poo and wee for a good three years to come?

In The Headmaster's Son, a nostalgic and faintly disturbing juvenile romp through the 1980s, Richard Herring considers what could possibly be worse than being a podgy, swotty, virginal schoolboy. What if your dad's the headmaster too?

Jesus Christ - Son of God! Saviour of mankind! Superstar! 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 10 episodes of a chatshow about poker on a satellite channel which subsequently closed down! At first sight they have little in common. Or do they? Join Rich as he answers this question, substantially reworking his first and favourite solo work, Christ on a Bike. Now ten years older than the Messiah when he died, has Herring achieved as much with his life?

'What is love, anyway?' is a heart-warmingly honest and personal examination of the romantic (and not so romantic) adventures and misadventures of the UK's most prolific comedian, as well as a genuine attempt to define this mysterious, debilitating, evil and wondrous emotion.

After covering weighty issues like death, love, religion and spam javelins, the 'King of Edinburgh' (6 Music) is in a frivolous mood with this show about daftness, whether the term cool comedian is an oxymoron, bouncing joyously on the sofa and how Herring's whole career is a failed attempt to top a piece of visual slapstick comedy he came up with at 16. Can he revisit the joke thirty years on, or will it smash his old bones?

ECU Audience Award winning short film starring Richard Herring and Rachel Stubbings. While You Were Away is the story of a normal husband and wife having a far from normal argument.

After years of drifting aimlessly and alone, Richard Herring is now settled down with a wife and a tiny baby. Is he finally happy now? Or does responsibility for the lives of others come with its own terrors? In his twelfth solo stand up show, Richard examines whether we can ever hope to be or are meant to be truly content. If we were never unhappy would happiness have any meaning? Why do our brains force us to envision the worst possible outcomes even on a day when everything seems fine. How likely is it that Richard's baby will be skewered by a stalactite of frozen urine falling from a plane and is it really worth him wasting his time thinking about it? Does being happy mean a comedian loses his edge and true belly laughs only come from depression? How much pressure was there on Happy the dwarf to live up to his name? Is there any system that will guarantee us eternal bliss or should we just embrace the fact that life is a vale of tears and our only option is to laugh in its face?