Comic vows to stay off screens

Robin Ince is quitting TV - saying he’s finally realised that it’s not important to him.

The comic said he was fed up of the way he comes across on the screen, and being defined by his appearances, which are often edited. And he cited the online backlash he receives online after every appearance as another factor.

Writing on his blog about his intention to stick to live performance, Ince that he finally realised at the age of 43 ‘that TV is not a prerequisite to existence. If you perform, but no one is there to film it, have you made a sound?’

He said: ‘As I have moved further into middle age I have become increasingly uncomfortable with television.’

‘I decided against Question Time because I thought the space I would take up could be occupied by someone who knew what they were talking about. I am also a weaker human than Mary Beard and would not take well to having slurs and family threats hurled my way.

‘I have taken a more primitive view of television, realising that the tribes who feared the theft of their soul by photography may have been on to something. Whatever you are on television, that’s what people thing you are.’

Ince said that even performing stand-up on the Stewart Lee-produced Comedy Central show Alternative Comedy Experience left him bruised, saying: ‘I was unhappy with my performance on the night of the stand up show and went into grey mood for a couple of months, knowing I had armed those who would enjoy deriding me.’

Another of his last appearances was a panel show that he describes as being ‘edited in such a way that it appeared to be like a William Burroughs exercise of literary cut up’.

Ince has previously quit his regular appearances on talking-heads clips shows – or, as he put it, being ‘one of the smears of bacteria in the petri dish of TV list shows’ –  saying: ‘I had no idea why  was doing it beyond habit and remuneration.’

His TV appearances include Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets, Argumental and Top 50 Celebrity Meltdowns.

Published: 13 Feb 2013