TWO-time Taskmaster winner and podcast king Richard Herring is making a beeline for Monmouth Savoy this month with his first tour in six years – Can I Have My Ball Back?

At the heart of the show is the alarming discovery via a trip to his GP in 2021 that he had testicular cancer.

For a comedian who had done a whole show on male genitalia and written a book about toxic masculinity, it felt like some cruel trick of fate.

But having come through the ordeal, Richard can still see the funny side, and in his own words will be "talking bollocks" while answering the question: "Is a severed gonad in a jar a fitting prize to bring in for Taskmaster?"

The winner of series 10 of Taskmaster and 2022's Taskmaster Champion of Champions, he has also won a House of Games Champion of Champions trophy and Pointless.

Widely known as a podcast innovator, he has been dubbed “The Podfather” for his popular RHLSTP podcast – the only non-BBC show to win a Sony Best Comedy Award – where he regularly gets a million downloads a month.

Previous guests include Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Katherine Ryan, Greg Davies, Dawn French, Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Merchant, Russell Howard, Romesh Ranganathan, Bridget Christie, Grayson Perry, and Richard E. Grant to name a handful.

As half of comedy duo Lee & Herring, he also wrote and performed in shows such as Lionel Nimrod’s Inexplicable World (BBC Radio 4), Fist of Fun (BBC Radio 1/BBC Two) and This Morning with Richard Not Judy (BBC Two).

And with Al Murray, Richard devised and wrote 37 episodes of the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please (Sky One/Paramount) for Al’s alter ego The Pub Landlord, and also wrote and starred in comedy drama You Can Choose Your Friends (ITV1), Richard Herring’s Objective for BBC Radio 4 and comedy drama, Relativity, on BBC Radio 4.

A prolific writer, Richard has also written and published ten books, including Can I Have My Ball Back?, Richard Herring’s Would You Rather?, and The Problem with Men: When is it International Men’s Day? (and why it matters).

Richard Herring – Can I Have My Ball Back? is at Monmouth Savoy on Sunday, June 30. Tickets £20 are available at the box office or via monmouth-savoy.co.uk