Comedian makes £80,000 for Refuge while tweeting date of International Men’s Day

Comedian Richard Herring has raised more than £80,000 for domestic violence support charity Refuge as part of an International Women’s Day campaign.

Herring spent the day replying to hundreds of tweets from people asking “when is International Men’s Day?”, informing them it is November 19.

The stand-up comic has single-handedly undertaken the campaign for several years but decided to try to fundraise while rebuking complainers this year.

He wrote on a JustGiving page: “I do this so that everyone else can get on with celebrating International Women’s Day and using it to raise awareness of the issues that affect women. And trying to achieve equality.”

He added: “But if you think about it equality works both ways. So if you think men don’t get equality in some areas, then striving for equality will help them too.”

“It’s really just a bit of fun to point out how unoriginal people are being and also answer the question that they don’t expect has an answer. The answer is November 19th. But as the number of people asking never seems to decrease it’s a busy day for me.”

“I thought this year it would be nice if we raised some money along the way, to turn stupid or negative comments by people who don’t understand how to Google into something that will be positive and helpful,” he said.