Robin Ince

Once you've been good and read all about Robin, give yourself a little treat by watching the man himself discuss American Foreign Policy and the pitfalls of philosophy

Come on then, when did you realise you were witty?

Does anyone know? It’s one of the hardest questions to ever answer, that. I remember entertaining my parents’ friends in a cheeky, look-at-me-dancing-about kind of way, so it may well have been around then. But of course ten minutes before every tour gig I do I realise that I’m not funny at all and wonder why I chose stand up as a career. I thought the feeling would have gone away by the time I was in my late thirties, but it hasn’t. It never goes away.

Have you ever had any particularly bad gigs?

I’ve had plenty of them. I was in Croydon once and suddenly everything just fell apart. There was a low hum of chatter and you could hear every cough that was in the room. And then there was the time I was booed ON at the Belfast Empire - that was reasonably vicious.

We hear you were once a bit of a rocker. Tell us about your time as lead singer for TheReg...

The band was originally called The Reg Gutteridge experience, after the recently deceased, as he is now, boxing commentator. We used to play at a place in Finsbury Park which has since been demolished, possibly because echoes of our music still existed in the brick work. We sang covers like Adam Ant’s “Never Trust a Man with Egg on his Face” and “Fight for your right( to party)” by the Beastie Boys (it’s a very weird thing imagining me doing that) and then there were the songs about Dennis Nilsen... . I was not sacked (as some say) due to lack of musical ability, although I will accept that I have a total lack of music ability. It was a very brief soirée. And I was terrible - absolutely useless.

You’ve appeared in an episode of The Office, have supported Ricky Gervais on tour and popped up in his DVD. Are you mates?

Well, I suppose we are. I’ve known him since the early nineties when I first started doing stand up and he was managing the ultimate Queen tribute band and booked various bands as an entertainment manager. No one, including himself, had any idea that ten years later the drunk man who was trying to get gigs at various student balls for a man who looked vaguely like Freddie Mercury would suddenly become the man sitting at the Golden Globes near Clint Eastwood. I’d never tour with him again though. It drives me quite insane.

That’s not surprising given the torrent of abuse he gives you...

I always describe him as being like a child emperor who bangs his piano and breaks things over the head of his attendants, and then giggles and they all have to look around and go “oh emperor, you’re the funniest man in the world”. That’s basically what he’s like. He’s a short attention-spanned, strange little stunted, pig-faced continental European emperor from the 18th century. He abuses all of his friends. His friends are basically there for his amusement.

Enough about Gervais. You began the disgustingly successful Book Club night - where did the idea come from?

It was one of those odd things really. It was what we would call an artistic success and a financial nothingness. And that makes me very proud. A lot of the more crass things I do, I do purely so I can fund the more ridiculous ideas.

During one Edinburgh festival I was bored so late one night I decided to go on stage and start reading from my favourite weird books and from copies of the TV Times from like 1976, all with musical backing. I’d do 15 minutes of say Mills and Boon, then read from How to Marry the Man of Your Choice and all these other kind of odd-ball books. While I was doing it, I realised it was good way of mixing things up and giving acts a place to develop all sorts of ideas. Ideas that are a little bit more esoteric.

Panel shows: love them or loathe them?

I know that Mock the Week is repeated a lot by Dave and I’m very angry about that, as for me it’s one of my career low points. Every single week I get someone texting me, or going on my Facebook or Myspace going “You were on Mock the Week”. And I’m like, “oh no not that episode again!” I was unprepared for it. I hadn’t realised the amount of ammunition everyone else would have - Mock the Week is very gladiatorial!

Never Mind the Buzzcocks was fantastic. I just mucked around with Bill Bailey, Phil Jupitus and Simon Amstell. You don’t have much idea of what you are doing - it’s just kind of ready wit - or at least ready shouting!

You won the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy. Does that make you feel old?

It does suggest a kind of “thank you very much, we’ve enjoyed having on the circuit, now go. Go! You’ve reached the pinnacle of you career. We’ve given you this award; it’s not going to get better than this”. It was really nice to get though.

What’s the wittiest thing you’ve ever seen or heard?

One of my favorite things actually involves the journalist Christopher Hitchens. On the day TV evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell died, Hitchens was invited onto all these news shows to give his take on it. Despite the fact this man had just literally passed away, Hitchens was vicious, calling him a near criminal. The newscaster just looked stunned. But Hitchens was like, “just listen sir, you asked me on this programme sir”. If you gave that man an enema you could bury him in a match box.

You’ve called your current tour "Bleeding Heart Liberal". That’s an interesting name....

Yes...I’ve previously done shows that have been quite a lot about the main stream newspaper media and I was reading some article a while back thinking “yeah I’d probably be put in the category of bleeding heart liberal”. Even though I’m not really a liberal, I’m more of a socialist, which I only realised when I started writing the show.

The show is, at times, a reasonably aggressive attack on fundamentalism and the state of world politics today. Obviously all in a whimsical manner though. Whimsical aggression, that’s what I do!

The other thing is, you tend to come up with the name of the show before you’ve written it and then it doesn’t actually fit in with what you’ve done at all. I’ve done that on many occasions.
Now head over to our Cinema to watch Robin discuss [American Foreign Policy][1] and the [pitfalls of philosophy][2]
Robin is currently on tour visit [www.myspace.com/robinince][4] for more information.




[3]: http://dave.uktv.co.uk/video/word-dave/word-dave-robin-ince/
[4]: http://www.myspace.com/robinince