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Robin Ince started his comedy career as a writer, working on shows including Alistair McGowan's Big Impresison, V Graham, Norton and Meet Ricky Gervais, his first of many collaborations with the Extras star.

Ince appeared with Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Jimmy Carr in the 2001 Edinburgh show Rubbernecker, and regularly supports 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 2007, he was named best compere at the Chortle Awards.

On TV, he has appeared as John Peel on Channel 4's 11 O'Clock Show as well as countless panel games and 'talking heads' shows, including Channel 4's 100 Greatest Musicals (2003), BBC Three's The State We're In (2003), Celebdaq (2004), BBC Two's Mock The Week (2006). He has also appeared on Radio 4's Now Show, Just A Minute and Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music.

In 2006, he co-wrote his first feature film, Razzle Dazzle, about children's dance contests in Australia.

What's So Funny? End of conference stand-up show
Live Review
British Library

The British Library is fast becoming an unlikely fixture on the London comedy circuit. Robin Ince has been here with his Book Club – which makes sense – Andy Zaltzman’s brought Political Animal here; and now a stand-up gig to close a day of discussions on some academic aspects of comedy.

Held in a comfortable lecture theatre, it’s the sort of gig where Ince, on tonight too, doesn’t stand out shuffling on with an armful of literature, Alistair Barrie brings on a portfolio pad and host Tiffany Stevenson brings on… a glass of red wine. It’s only a shame the audience can’t bring booze into these plush environs as well.

But it’s apposite as one of her nicest gags involves wordplay about why she’s like a bottle of plonk. There is a good smattering of nifty puns in her set, as well as a snappy malapropism or two, although her longer routines tend to lose their way – such as a roundabout yarn about her boyfriend tackling a mouse –  or start from an uninspiring premise: what if Hitler had Facebook (‘Himmler likes this’ etc etc etc).

Yet thought her amiable banter she mustered up something approaching a club atmosphere among the mix of students and older library regulars that comprised this unusual audience.

Not that Ince is exactly your standard club act. Rather than questions like ‘Who here smokes dope?’, he asks ‘Who here takes an empirical view of philosophy?’ But then this is the sort of audience who are always going to be intellectually flattered by such an approach.

Following the Wittgenstein material, our cardigan-wearing comic offers a more down-the-line observational routine about poor use of language that doesn’t particularly surprise, before returning to his favourite topic of bad writing, with readings of an overblown giant crab horror epic and an hilariously clunky Danielle Steel poem, sometimes accompanied by the willowy frame of Ben Moor, contorting into strange shapes to wittily, if unusually, illustrate the narrative.

Next up, Barrie took a line of very little resistance, with his easy and often superficial comments from his liberal-left standpoint. America as the world bully, with Britain his annoying mate goading him on, is an old and obvious idea, while picking apart Sarah Palin’s stupid statements is like shooting Alaskan deer in the head.

There are some good lines amid the unchallenging polemic – about Britain heading backwards or an obscure George Bush fact regurgitated – but overall the writing needs more intensity and focus, even though the delivery is slickly assured. His putting on of stereotypical accents and his routine about the British ‘discovering’ places to the surprise of the people already living there were both overplayed, and his translation of the slogans of the right into more civilised language (on the aforementioned pad) seemed weak.

Having spoken about offensive comedy in a panel earlier in the day, Shazia Mirza offered a few lines about Muslims and Irish people wanting to blow people up. ‘Don’t be scared to laugh,’ she asserted at another point… as if it couldn’t possibly be the laziness of the stereotype that muted the response.

More relaxed than she used to be, Mirza hit a more productive seam with material about arranged marriages and her overbearing parents. But when she directs her comedy outwards rather than inwards, the effect can be more brutal than funny. When it comes to moaning about white and Asian kids who think they are ‘black’ (whatever that means, I suspect they’re not impersonating Nelson Mandela), or teachers knocking off at 3.30pm, the material needs more than just a sneer to succeed.

If Mirza evoked the day’s earlier ‘offensive comedy’ discussion, and the proletarian Stevenson the class-based one, headliner Hal Cruttenden had the debate on camp comedy covered, his slightly effeminate posh voice meaning he’s forever being mistaken for gay despite his protestations, wife and children.

He claimed an inferiority complex about the venue – ‘I’m not one of the more intellectual acts’ – but his litany of middle-class concerns certainly struck a cord here, whether complaining about his rotund figure, minor ailments or lack of spark in his marriage. There’s an authenticity to the material, and he delivers it with affability, passion and rhythm, adroitly bouncing ideas around the audience as a set-up to each routine in a way that’s as charming as he is witty.

Cruttenden thought the audience might have been disappointed after he was announced as being ‘off the Royal Variety Performance’ but not being famous. But surely no one would have been, following this impressively strong set.

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Saw him a couple of years ago on a whim; cheap tickets, so why not? I could not have been more pleasantly surprised, it was one of the best shows I've seen. Highly recommended.

Jamie McIntyre, July 2011

Tries very hard to be funny. Unfortunately, he just isn't.

Tom, November 2010

Smug tedious hectoring know all. Buy The Guardian and be bored in the comfort of your home rather than waste money to see him. Or wait for one of his many yawn inducing BBC appearances. Probably alongside Marcus Brigstocke, the only man in the world more who's more of a "Student Grant" than this prat.

Robert, December 2009

I watched Robin Ince as part of Josie Long's Underbelly show. For me he was the highlight of the night. Truly engaging, surprising, and funny. His frantic delivery built to a intelligent outburst that really was fantastic. I can't wait to see more.

Jay Cowle, July 2009

Ince is a very Radio 4-friendly, charming, harmless act. Saw the ‘Bleeding Heart Liberal’ show in Tunbridge Wells. This was a ‘show of two halves’. The first half was around 20 minutes of mostly non-amusing observation of what happened to him on the way to the theatre, armed with a notebook. This was filler, as was a musical act featuring a Jacques Brel-inspired front man backed up with guitar, drums and double bass, singing existential songs about a blind man’s dog, uniformed, uninformed idiots and Cupid. Post-interval Ince was better. At the end, he said he’d missed out a lot of the ‘good stuff’, which suggests that he should beef up a weak first half with some of that. His self-awareness and realisation that he is not Eddie Izzard is acute and a little grating, but Ince is good when angrily attacking the media, religious leaders, and hypocrisy. With his ‘highbrow-books-on-a-table’ props and ‘top three’ lists of physicists, Ince is trying perhaps a bit too hard to cut out a persona of the intellectual. Ince repeatedly says 'I am a Marxist' but he fails to explore this and, as such, comes across as the shallow, comfortable, suburban Guardianista par excellence. An adequate two hours entertainment. With a bit more structure, Robin could lift his act from average to good.

Tim Probert, January 2009

Robin is one of Ricky Gervais's best mates which explains how this unfunny so called comedian gets work. It's obviously a case of it's not what you know it's who you know.

vectra owner, January 2009

Terrible comedian, whenever I see him him sat there in silence, he doesn't even get a smile from me from his so called jokes. *Yawn*

Bert Stein, November 2008

Pedantic,childish and a complete waste of a night. Never have so many been so bored by so few.

ted crilly, October 2008

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