My review of Richard Herring and Catie Wilkins appeared on the Nottingham Evening Post, (as I still call it) website today. Read it here.

Even though I wasn't able to print the show's title, Talking Cock (despite being able to use 'penis' and 'vagina', two words I never thought I'd use in a newspaper review), I did attempt to sneak in a sly wanking joke by including the words 'pull it off'. Originally, I intended to put a 'no pun intended' type line, but figured that I would be drawing attention to it. My editor saw through my evil scheme, and changed it to 'pull this off', not nearly as rude but The Glee Club did tweet me their enjoyment of it.

I have several of my reviews on Herring's website, so I emailed him my original draft in the hope that he would use it instead. It went like this:

It is almost time for the Edinburgh festival, and at the moment we are in preview season, which means a welcome return to Nottingham for Richard Herring. This time he’s brought his wife along too, but this isn’t a Burns and Allen style double act, Catie Wilkins is a comedian in her own right. Catie was here to preview her show Joy Is My Middle Name. She seemed nervous at first, but had the audience on side fairly quickly with a routine based on inappropriate actions. Catie made no secret of the fact that she was still honing the show, and gained a huge supportive round of applause for eventually delivering a joke she had forgotten. She kept apologising and making light of her reliance on notes, which was unnecessary given that this is what previews are all about. If the audience don’t like it then it is their problem, not the performers.

I’m not allowed to write the name of Richard Herring’s latest show, which centres around a man’s (and women’s) relationship with the penis. Originally performed in 2002, Herring wrote the show as a male response to the popularity of The Vagina Monologues. Jokes about the male appendage have been around since comedy began, so it makes sense to centre a show around it, and Herring is one of the few comedians who could pull it off. In preparation for the show, two anonymous questionnaires were posted online, the results of which make for interesting reading. Essentially, the audience have done most of the work here, as Richard referred to these statistics throughout the night to huge laughter.

There were laughs and uncomfortable gasps combined when it came to the ‘where have you put you penis for fun’ question, but that was nothing compared to the injuries section, which has made audience members faint on occasion. Everybody stayed conscious tonight though, which is good because otherwise we would not have learned about jelly in a toilet roll.