All about inspiring figures

Robin Ince is co-hosting a new podcast in which guests talk about their most inspiring figures.

The comic will be joined by co-presenter  Dr Helen Czerski – a physicist and oceanographer - plus two guests in each episode They’ve Made Us

It was recorded in front of a live audience at The Royal Institution in London earlier this year and featured guests including Steve Backshall, Natalie Haynes, Professor Sue Black, Helen Glover and Professor Chris Jackson.

Ince said: ‘While writing Bibliomaniac, I started to think about all the minds that have changed me and changed my reality, not just scientists like Carl Sagan and Janna Levin, but poets, authors, classicists and even mystics. 

‘We should be living in a world where our perceptions are changing on a weekly basis, where the stars become more vivid and full of stories and the feel of the soil beneath our feet seems both familiar and more strange. 

‘I wanted to find out who has changed the minds of some of my favourite artists, thinkers and scientists, so what better way than to go to the Royal Institution, a venue that changed my view of the universe every Christmas from the age of ten, and where I happily allowed someone to toy with the motor region of my brain with a magnet one Christmas, and along with Helen, talk to people I admire about who has made their universe an ever more exciting place to explore.’

The series will be released free as a video series on the YouTube channel of The Cosmic Shambles Network and an audio podcast on all usual platforms.

Published: 4 Sep 2023