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Speed, Fish and Sperm
Danny Robins chats to Holly Falconer about shadow boxing, hallucinations and persuading strangers to wank for Britain
Danny Robins was always a law-abiding child, but things went a little awry at university. "I certainly never developed any Sid Viscous-style habits," he says of his time studying history at Bristol. But he did dabble in amphetamines from time to time. Then he met Dickie.
"With a name like that, I should have known he was a man not to be trusted. I ended up buying this enormous bag of speed: an industrial sized amount that I could barely carry - it weighed about five pounds". He promptly forgot to feed flatmate, Marcus Brigstocke's fish, until suddenly, while dancing in a nightclub, hallucinations of dead fish started floating before him. "It was a pretty horrific moment," he recalls. When he got home he had a panic attack. "I thought that I was dying. It seemed my heart was pumping out of my chest and I just didn't know what was going on." This started a year-long stretch of anxiety, during which he was plagued with fears of death.
Intensive Therapy And An Anxious Imagination
Fortunately, with intensive therapy and some bloody-minded determination, he recovered. Danny is circumspect about his drug taking days now, but says his experience isn't uncommon. "By coincidence, Dan Tetsell, who plays Mr Walker in my stand-up show, came a cropper from smoking too much dope," he says. "Plus, a lot of people I know who are good at some sort of field within the arts have also had problems with anxiety."
The imagination can sometimes work too hard, he thinks. "I will invent anxieties for myself to occupy my mind. When things seem to be going really well, I'll start worrying I have some sort of terminal disease. My brain seems to need to be battered with those kind of things to produce good work."
Coaxing Sperm Into Cups
Last year Robins presented BBC Three's Let's Make A Baby, a reality show which duped people into believing they were competing to conceive and win £100,000. "It was quite hellish at times," he admits. Quite a pale, rakish figure, Robins is all scruffy hair and well-kept teeth. Picturing him scouring the nation to politely coax men to wank into cups and you can't help but laugh. But it's a cause he believes in.
In 2005 a law requiring sperm donors to provide personal details was passed. It resulted in a dramatic national donor shortfall. "I've basically been on a one man crusade to try and change this," Robins says. And, has he made his own, err, cup runneth over for the cause? Danny declines to say, changing the subject to his latest comedic creation; a part-time teacher who DJs at night.
Here again, Robins taps into his manhood to create laughter. "I'm quite fascinated by the idea that a man playing CDs in a room can suddenly somehow transform himself into a god," he explains. The idea came from his own experiences as a DJ. "I realised it was a bit ridiculous that all I was doing was playing CDs, maybe choosing a good order for the music - that was the only skill I could really claim to have. Somehow it just made everyone think, 'Wow, what a cool bloke!' and I thought: 'I'm actually just a nerdy man playing CDs'."
DJ Danny
Conceived for Robins' Edinburgh 2005 show, DJ Danny is running at London's Soho Theatre between 21-24 March. "In the current show, DJ Danny tells everyone really proudly, 'I've now quit my job,' and everyone goes 'Wahey!'" describes Robins. "Yeah, then Danny says; 'I'm now doing long term supply work'." You get this sense that he's never going to quite escape the shackles of school."
Given Robins' past, one might assume his DJ Danny routine would target the clubbing scene's drug culture. To the contrary, Robins believes there should be a moratorium on drug jokes within comedy, as he thinks they tend to produce cheap laughs. Although he admits that occasionally he might apologise for stumbled words by mentioning a fictitious crack habit.
Shadow Boxing En Route To The Toilet
Despite his success, Robins is still neurotic. But he has developed coping mechanisms. One of his pre-performance rituals is a shadow boxing routine - which caused some confusion amongst punters at Edinburgh last year. Without a proper dressing room, he was forced to stand on the outside steps outside en route to the toilet. "So many people would walk past me and watch me shadow boxing in my white tracksuit." More than a few asked him what the hell he was doing.
In a typical English style, the self-effacing shadow boxer doesn't boast about his achievements or his famous contacts. But little things slip in. Like, he's interviewed Morrissey for The Culture Show, he's a regular contributor to Jon Ronson's On. and he co-starred in The Museum of Everything both on Radio 4. And, of course, the fact he's friends with Brigstocke. Who, by the way, punished his flat mate (and audiences throughout the land) for killing his fish with the ultimate reprieve; he stole Robins' one remaining drugs joke. Wanna hear? Danny does the honours: "After being stopped whilst driving too fast on the motorway, a policeman says to the driver, 'Sorry sir, do you know what speed you're doing?' The man replies, 'Yeah, just a couple of grams I think.'" Boom, boom, indeed.
