Richard Herring's fans pledge £100k for web series
Richard Herring has raised more than £100,000 from his fans to make a professional-quality comedy series for the internet.
He hit his target on crowdfunding website Kickstarter with more than two days to go, meaning he can now fund six episodes of sketch and stand-up show As It Occurs To Me.
He tweeted: 'Thanks so much everyone. I didn't cry, but I can't believe it.'
He then added that hitting the target was 'utterly insane. I am starting work on this tomorrow. Your support is a helluva incentive to make something good.'
As It Occurs To Me began life as an audio series, recorded at the Leicester Square Theatre between 2009 and 2011. Also featuring Dan Tetsell, Emma Kennedy and Christian Reilly, the series made the top 10 of the iTunes chart, won a Chortle award and was nominated for a Sony radio award. It was released for free and funded by those paying to be in the theatre audience.
Earlier this year, Herring decided to make a video version of the 'stupid, clever and uncensored comedy', explaining: 'We need money to pay the actors, camera crew, editors, puppet makers and cartoonists. We want to make these to TV quality so it's not going to be cheap. But all the episodes – as well as hopefully some extras and stand alone sketches – will appear for free online.'
After an extensive Twitter campaign, more than 3,500 people have pledged amounts ranging from £1 to £500 to make it happen, so monthly episodes will be be released from later this year.
Here's me celebrating (and in the background what all the money is going on!) pic.twitter.com/ANByxVlpVA
— Richard K Herring (@Herring1967) April 4, 2016
Published: 4 Apr 2016