Robin Ince

If you want to stand a good chance of finding find Robin Ince then we recommend going to a comedy club, staying for oh, about an hour or so, and there’s a high probability he will walk through the door in a rush, take to the stage and deliver 15 minutes of excellent comedy before running off again.

Ince gigs more than anyone we’ve seen on the circuit. At the Edinburgh Fringe alone he performed five gigs a day, and at Latitude it seems like he is on two stages at once, both performing at the comedy tent and looking after his project The Book Club.

A whirring haze of cognitive energy and liberal anger, Ince has a unique place in the comedy circuit in the UK. A whole sub-genre of science-nerd comedy has grown up around him and he is one of the rare comedians who enjoys success while not taking the corporate route many of his contempories have.

A firm favourite of SSP Ince has admitted to feeling less angry at the world since he started a family a few years ago and according to his website is now ‘exploring whether you can be happy and rational at the same time’ – but still manages odd quip at the Daily Mail from time to time. While his ranty style of comedy has been gradually phased out it has been replaced by a number of excellent high-brow science shows which culminated with his Uncaged Monkeys tour which has a role of honour that includes Professor Brian Cox, Dr Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Dara O'Briain and Tim Minchin.

Ince started performing in the early ‘90s and appeared alongside Jimmy Carr Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais in ‘Rubbernecker’ in 2001. As a close friend of Gervais, Ince has supported him on a number of tours in the early part of the century, including Politics in 2004 and Fame in 2007 and appeared briefly in The Office.

In 2005 ince started The Book Club at The Albany on Great Portland Street and within a year it was touring the UK, and taking over the literary stage at Latitude while his own tours include Bleeding Heart Liberal in 2009 and Robin Ince vs. the Moral Majority in late 2009/10 while 2011 saw Ince tour with Happiness Through Science.

Ince has a number of awards under his belt including the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement, and a Sony Award for his Radio 4 show with Brian Cox The Infinite Monkey Cage, which won Best Speech Programme.

According to Wikipedia Ince was also lead singer in alternative rock combo TheReg from 1992-1994 and can now be heard on BBC 6 Music's Steve Lamacq show trying to guess people's background through their musical taste alone.