Robin Ince started his comedy career as a writer, working on shows including Alistair McGowan's Big Impression, V Graham Norton and Meet Ricky Gervais, his first of many collaborations with the After Life creator. He regularly supported Gervais on tour. He also appeared in one episode of The Office, playing interviewee Stewart Foot.
That role inspired his tongue-in-cheek solo Edinburgh debut in 2004, and he has returned to the Fringe every year since. In 2005 he started erudite comedy night The Book Club, loosely based around bad literature, which won him the innovation award at the 2006 Chortle Awards as well as the outstanding contribution to comedy accolade at that year's Time Out awards.
In 2006, he co-wrote his first feature film, Razzle Dazzle, about children's dance contests in Australia.
More latterly, Ince has become known for science-based shows, especially the Christmas spectacular Nine Lessons And Carols For Curious People, which began in 2008 – the year before he started co-hosting Radio 4 pop-science show Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox.
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Robin Ince: Ricky Gervais was a bully
But it was trans jokes that ended their friendship
Robin Ince has said Ricky Gervais effectively bullied him during their time touring together.
The Infinite Monkey Cage host was Gervais’s friend and support act in the early 2000s, but revealed they have not spoken since he urged the star to reconsider his jokes mocking trans people.
While on tour, Ince was often Gervais’s whipping boy, who he’d try to rile up with constant teasing and practical jokes – including making up stories that he’d share with fans.
Speaking to The Starting Line podcast this week, Ince said: ‘I look back now, and I think it is bullying, really it is.
‘I'm very good at sometimes just acclimatising to things, which you go "actually, this is really weird".’
He added that other people noticed the behaviour was out of order and that it was actually the intervention of The Office co-star Mackenzie Crook who eventually said: ‘Rick, can you stop doing it please?" He found it very…. [out of order]
‘I would go through it, but people who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked.’
This week, I’m talking to comedian, poet, performer and one half of BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, Robin Ince. We talked about everything from his love of books, comedy and science through to his time on tour with Ricky Gervais, working with Professor Brian Cox, his upbringing, family, neurodivergence and more. A fun, sprawling conversation, just hours before Robin spoke at Cheltenham Science Festival. Watch or listen to the full episode in bio links!
Even at the time, Ince described himself as being Gervais’s ‘human stress ball’ and said: ‘I am not saying that it is a traumatic experience, but after two weeks I came out in red lumps that my doctor said were a stress rash. I think my hair is coming out in clumps.’
And in a 2012 Chortle interview he described the tour as ‘monstrous, horrible and bizarre’. Then he said: ‘The way that everyone joined in, it really was very Lord of the Flies and of course I am very Piggy-like. With the distance of time, I can kind of laugh at it but... today I don’t feel I could handle being squealed at constantly, having make up put on my face while a load of tech crew and his tour manager, dance around in a tribal manner.’
However the pair remained friends – at least until a 2022 blog post in which Ince cautioned Gervais against becoming a ‘pin-up for the alt-right’. Writing on his Cosmic Shambles website, Ince said Gervais’s belief he was making mischief was not enough, saying: ‘I think it is easy to forget the collateral damage of jokes. Anti trans punchlines seem to have become highly profitable and it ignores the dehumanising effect on a swathe of already marginalised people.’
Speaking to Rich Leigh on his Starting Line podcast this week, Ince said they haven’t spoken since.
‘We were what I would call gag friends,’ he said. ‘We'd ring each other up a lot, and we'd talk to each other a lot.’
‘I found it very difficult when he was I saw some of his recent material, the trans jokes in particular. When you've got Laurence Fox and Tucker Carlson and Nigel Farage really enjoying your jokes, it’s not good enough just say, "well, people have taken the jokes wrongly"…
‘It’s not necessarily good enough to say that everything is ironic and you don't mean it, if you also have lots of people using those punchlines as memes, as a philosophy for life. You have to decide, are you the philosopher king, or do your jokes mean nothing?’
Ince said he decided to speak out because of the non binary and trans fans of Monkey Cage and his other work, explaining: ‘I didn't want anyone to feel that because of my connection with him, that I also would have agreed with with this kind of anti trans jokes.
‘So I wrote what I think was a very gentle blog post – I'm sure I could have sold it to someone [but] I just put it on my blog on Cosmic Shambles.’
He said the reaction from Gervais’s fans was ‘really vicious’ and that he has never heard from his former pal since.
Chortle approached Gervais’s representative for comments.
A Curious film...
A new feature length documentary charting the evolution of Ince’s Christmas comedy and science spectacles is to be released for free on YouTube next week.
Curious People features interviews with Ince, as well as contributors such as Natalie Haynes, Josie Long, Brian Cox, Chris Hadfield and Stewart Lee as well as and never before seen archive and behind the scenes footage.
Director Trent Burton says: ‘The original idea of Curious People was to just make a short film of some sound bites talking about Robin’s impact on science communication. However, like Nine Lessons itself, it quickly got out of hand and overran. So here we are with a full-length feature…
‘It’s been such a joy diving back into the archives and finding things I barely remember, if I remember them at all, in putting together this film. I hope it serves as a snapshot of an incredibly important movement in comedy and science communication history kickstarted by Robin.’
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