Comedian Richard Herring tells Steve Pratt why he decided to stage a male answer to the hugely successful Vagina Monologues.

NIGHT after night comedian Richard Herring stood in the wings while women's sexuality was celebrated in the stage hit The Vagina Monologues.

That was when he was sharing a venue in London's West End with a production of that international theatrical success. "They were on before me and I had to listen to them entertain 350 people. Then I'd go on to an audience of 40," he recalls.

Clearly size did matter. Perhaps that's why he eventually responded to entreaties to embark on a male version of The Vagina Monologues. "I resisted initially because it's such an obvious idea," he says. "Then the more I thought, the more interesting it became that nobody had done it. There were difficulties but I thought that, if you could do it in the right way, the time was right for a show about men.

"It's a look at men's frailty. A lot of it is sexual angst. The more I thought about the stereotype of men and how I expect them to behave, the more I realised that I didn't know any men like that. Look at what happened to John Bobbit. Why is it so hilarious? Men and women find it quite amusing."

Herring had the idea but didn't quite know how to tackle it. He ruled out following the formula of The Vagina Monologues and decided to research with an Internet survey, writing down all the questions he could think of on the subject of men and women. He emailed the list of questions to people on his mailing list and asked them to forward them to others. The show, Talking Cock, was compiled from the 5,000 to 6,000 replies he received.

"You come to the show expecting it to be one thing but I take the subject seriously too. It's a funny show and a good laugh, but there are moments of seriousness," he says. "Some amazing stuff came from the replies and I decided to go with the more common experiences, things that affect most of us. A lot of the same answers kept coming up. But it's not scientifically accurate."

Herring had so much information that he's now working on a book version of Talking Cock, for publication later this year. And the show is becoming a franchise with seven or eight foreign productions confirmed, and several more under discussion.

There are topics in the show that audiences find shocking, but people know in advance that "it's not about farming or a poultry show", he says. "Generally, people come and are up for it. There are surprises along the way when it gets serious and more sensitive. It's almost educational, but you feel you've been entertained. People have said, 'thanks for talking about it, I thought I was the only one who could'."

Ten years ago a show like Talking Cock would have difficult to stage because it would have been considered "a bit laddish" and women wouldn't have been "up for it". Now, he says, women seem to enjoy the show as much as men.

"I think women are thinking men maybe need a little bit more help. I'm a big advocate of feminism but men are slipping down in certain aspects. It's hard being a man at the moment. Men are so used to being beaten down that they're starting to believe it. You forget that women do like men, that's why they marry them."

Herring sees Talking Cock as the antidote to another popular stage show Puppetry Of The Penis, in which performers demonstrate the art of genital origami by manipulating their organs into the shape of hamburgers and the Eiffel Tower. "There the penis is ridiculed and twisted. Women had a show that celebrates the vagina and men had a show that ridiculed the penis. Hopefully my show goes a little way to redress that."

* Talking Cock is at York Grand Opera House on Friday. Tickets (01904) 671818