Sony Award winning comedian Robin Ince returns to one of his favourite Edinburgh venues, the Stand Comedy Club on 22nd June with a brand new show.
This new show is the logical progession of his previous tour, and will see Ince pondering the mysteries and idiosyncrasies of the human brain. He told me “Part one of my mind tours was mainly about self consciousness, so part two aims to be about what is in charge. It’s based on the battle of instincts in your brain that get funnelled out, left brain and right brain arguing, and the usual shouting and jumping about”. Expect lots of jumping about, in a show that is as frenetic as it is funny. It is aptly named ‘Robin Ince is In (and out of) his Mind’.
The mind in question is far from average, leaving audiences with slight feelings of vertigo as it speeds from topics as diverse as dying strawberries to Darwin’s inexplicable love of Barnacles. As someone who knows very little about the science of the mind, I asked if he is aiming to educate us about modern psychological thinking?
He reassured me, “Like most of my shows there will be a lot of stuff and nonsense, but I hope to bring up a few ideas that might stick and make people go off and ask questions to people who actually know something.”
Ince is a well-known sceptic, so I asked if he is looking to expose a lot of psychobabble?
“Psychobabble can be a handy coping mechanism if you don’t take it too seriously, but since Freud brought in “the talking cure” it does seem we have started talking too much.” The irony of this statement is unmissable from someone who talks, a lot, very fast, for a living.
Expect wit and wisdom in shedloads, and enough laughs to require caution when drinking your pint for fear it may become a choking hazard.
For those of you thinking about skipping this show and waiting instead for his Fringe residency this year, think again. His two week run at the Fringe will feature, incredibly, yet another new show, so this is the only chance to catch what Ince has described as his favourite show of his prolific career so far.
I asked what made it his favourite. ” I think this is the most freewheeling for a while, the next one should be even more so. It was my favourite show to tour, but now I am hungry to put together the next part. I think I tour a bit too incessantly, which is why I am taking most of 2016 off from touring, before shows about our minds break my own mind. “
Come and ponder the wonders of your brain, and appreciate what a marvellous gadget it is (even if it often fails to recall where you left the car keys)
Robin Ince playsThe Stand Comedy Club Sunday 22nd June 7.30 www.the stand.co.uk
