Science in the spotlight with Robin Ince

Comedian, performer, and writer Robin Ince has been asking questions about the world around him for as long as he can remember. 

Perhaps most famous for his radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage which he co-hosts on BBC Radio 4 with Professor Brian Cox, Ince has been bringing science to the masses in new and hilarious ways since the 90s. 

In this interview with our sister publication, Research Features, we discover what it's like performing 'science' at Glastonbury, why people may be frightened of science, and neurodivergence in STEM.

Transcript

Hello, I'm Todd. Welcome to ResearchPod. 

Although it may not be obvious to all, comedy and science go nicely hand-in-hand. Comedian, performer, podcaster and writer, Robin Ince, has been exploring science on stage and screen for more than 30 years, asking intriguing questions about the world around him for as long as he can remember. 

Perhaps most famous for his radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage which he co-hosts on BBC Radio 4 with Brian Cox, Ince has been bringing science to the masses in new and hilarious ways since the 1990s. 

In this interview with our sister publication, Research Features, Ince tells us more about bringing science to mainstream festivals like Glastonbury, why people are frightened of science and the power of comedy in communicating it, as well as his adventures in neurodiversity.

I also saw Kate Stables from This Is The Kit was with you the other day, because I do a bit of music journalism as well. And I interviewed Kate Greenman this year. 

Oh, Greenman, such a lovely festival, isn't it? Yeah, I really like that. I very rarely get to do it because I'm either doing the Edinburgh Fringe or because I'm not doing the Edinburgh Fringe, the family go, you are coming on holiday with us. But I love that festival. And Kate is an absolute, when we were at Glastonbury, we ended up, I think Keris Matthews wanted her to do a thing where, and we made these wreaths and stuff together. We both wore them for our gigs. So she wore hers for the, but no, I really liked, she's one of those people that I only met back in, it was probably about May or something like that. And we just clicked. We were doing a little festival together, a tiny little thing in an old working men's club. And it was one of those things where you just meet someone and you go, oh yeah, we've got to, you know, she's great. 

You said you're at Glastonbury, were you involved in the laboratory stage there? 

Yeah, I was doing, I did about, I don't know how many stages I did, I did the university, free university of Glastonbury, the laboratory stage, the cabaret stage. Once I'm at somewhere, the only rule I had was that I wasn't allowed to be on stage when Cyndi Lauper was on because I wanted to go and watch Cyndi Lauper. But yeah, I was at the laboratory stage and I'm just working on what we're going to do with them again next year as well. And it's just, you know, it's such a nice, I'm really glad there's more science at festivals. And I know, again, it's beginning to fade out, but we work with my friend Trent, who I do Cosmic Shambles with, like, you know, Latitude, for instance, we still work very hard to get more and more science on there. And, of course, Green Man had that fantastic Einstein's Garden. Is that still there? Yeah, yeah, it's still there, yeah. Yeah. And WOMAD, WOMAD had, I don't think it's, well, WOMAD's not on this year, is it? Or next year, rather. But, you know, WOMAD had the LHC, had its physics stage, the physics pavilion. And I think it's a constant reminder that what's often wrong with the entertainment world. is that everything is a little bit like the curriculum. Oh, this is music. This is science. And this is history. And actually, you know, people love watching some of their favourite bands and then going to see a lecture about quantum indeterminacy. And you wouldn't necessarily know that. And also, sometimes their minds have been correctly freed up by whatever they've been drinking, et cetera, to really be able to understand the behaviour of subatomic particles. 

Yeah, yeah. And what are your thoughts on bringing science to more mainstream festivals like Glastonbury?

All the time. I mean, it's how I feel about that going back to the curriculum. It's I think that this very specific delineation between subjects means that people specialize in a way that is ultimately not helpful. Certainly, I think a lot of the communication that we've seen from journalists, et cetera, about climate change shows a mixture of kind of arrogance and refusal to listen. Whereas if you actually bleed everything together, if you really I think all degrees, if you're doing a science degree, there should be a small module within that which looks at how this particular science has been used in art. You know, you look at something like there's a great book by a man called John Higgs. I don't know if you know it. It's called Stranger Than We Can Imagine. And it's all about how once quantum theory came along, that's the end of. So we've had first of all, we find out we're not the centre of the universe. That's a bit of a bit of an existential shock. Then we find out we're not something special in terms of entirely separate to the rest of life. We find out there's this tree of life or whatever metaphor you want to use. Then we find out the kind of Freudian earlier where our brain is like an iceberg. So we've got this little bit of the front that's in charge. And then deep below is all of this stuff going on that we know nothing about. And then you get the fact that the universe appears to be probabilistic. And that's it. And so we wrote this book which looks at how that affected art and literature and politics and so to do your science and at the same time have a little module that just says here are some of the science fiction books or indeed merely you know not not even science fiction just fiction here are the artists here are the films and on the other side of it i think that's how art should be as well i think arts courses should have a little science module that says you know what you've been reading here or studying here And this actually is directly connected to this piece of art and that piece of poetry. And so I think it's really important. And I think in festivals, it's a great way because also you do get tired of standing there. And even when you're watching your favourite bands, you go, oh, they're retired now, which are my favourite bands, to go and just sit somewhere and have it kind of quite a relaxed attitude. You know, it's that thing as well. which is a non-threatening atmosphere of science because I mean I found it oddly enough as well in since I've started writing quite a lot of poetry you know people come to the gigs and don't necessarily know I'm going to do poetry and then they come up to me afterwards and they go Oh, I didn't think I liked poetry because poetry and physics are things that in school very often people become alienated from these subjects. So we have to find the space where you can go. You don't have to know everything about science and you're allowed to ask any questions. because they're not stupid questions. If you're curious, you know, I always go back to the thing that, you know, people go, oh, God, what do children always say? Why is the sky blue? Well, first of all, they don't actually. It's kind of like a cliche. And two, why the sky is blue is not some simple, you know, oh, yes, guys, you know, once you get onto the idea of light scattering, that leads to so many different places. So, yeah, I think it's really important to take science into places that people aren't necessarily expecting it.

Yeah, and that sort of humility that you describe with sort of not necessarily knowing everything but asking questions. Is that sort of the premise for the work that you do with Brian Cox as well with your podcast? 

Probably not Brian. No, he's very close. I think one of the things that I've really over the 20 years that I've been doing different kind of things with scientists, one of the most useful things I've got, I think, is a real respect for doubt and that, you know, the excitement of realising that the answer is not the exciting thing. The new questions that grow from the answer is the exciting thing. And certainly the way that I like monkey cage to be is not to go here is a module in which you will now learn for 43 minutes about this particular idea of astronomy or whatever it might be, but that you are excited by what you've heard. So it's not that we go, here we go. That's your module. What we're doing is having a discussion where often someone goes, oh, my God, I need to know more about flies or I need to know more about slinkies or whatever it might be. I think, you know, I think, again, this is the error in the education system, not from the teachers, I should add, but from the way the curriculums are created by governments, which is we shouldn't just be getting a, you know, here we go, here's the knowledge you need. What we really need is passion. So, you know, I get excited by, I mean, I mean, I'm lucky I've got a kind of mind is I always say, you know, that I have no depth whatsoever, but I'm a very, very broad puddle. It's like, you know, there's so many different things that if someone tells me a new story, I go, oh my God, that's absolutely amazing. I need to read about that. And then someone told, oh my God, I need to know about that. Whereas of course, Brian is, you know, very focused on the things that he's interested in. So I think that also helps as well. And also, I don't have any shame now about the way that I ask questions. You know, they are from a place of real, you know, genuine excitement and interest. And sometimes they are too long with questions and sometimes I ask a question that's actually three different questions because I start asking a question and then in the middle my brain goes oh actually no I don't I think this might be the more interesting and by the third bit of the question it turns out the end of that is totally different and that but that's that's the ADHD mind of course that's you know which again is very useful I think for science communication or indeed communication of anything because it's a mind that is filled with so many connections being made.

Do you have to adjust how you sort of work with other people when you're collaborating with people, say with Kate Stables as opposed to Brian? 

No, I don't. I'll give you what I think is a good example, which was earlier this year, I went and gave a talk at the Crick Institute. Is that with Paul Nurse? Yeah. Yeah, he's great. I love Paul. You know, we then we had a drink afterwards, you know, of course, because with Paul. And then the next morning I was doing a primary school with five and six year olds. And I thought about it afterwards and I thought, I don't think there was a huge difference between the two things that I did. Obviously, at times there was different use of language. And at times I might have gone further into an idea in the Crick Institute than I went to the primary school. But I think my ultimate, my presentation is I don't have, I don't have a kind of front. And, you know, I never plan very much. My planning is to always be reading and watching and listening. And then I hope that when I start, I will, my brain goes, oh, there's that thing, and there's that thing, and it's on the right subject. But I thought afterwards, I thought, yeah, they're basically the same. I'm doing exactly the same performance. just with different words and with some ways that your mind obviously adapts if you've got five-year-olds dressed as Willy Wonka in front of you, as opposed to, you know, Paul Nurse and his Nobel Prize. So I don't adapt myself. I try to not wear different masks. And I think that's an interesting thing with curiosity, is I think real healthy, excited curiosity breaks down all the age barriers as well. You know, I've had shows where I've had eight year olds in and people in their mid 90s and they're all joining in because curiosity removes, you know, I'm very much against that idea of all of these different generations that we supposedly are. Because I think it's all nonsense. I think the most important and again, this might go. I certainly noticed this with neurodivergence, which is you can be in a room where your friendship group has teenagers and very old because you're united by a certain kind of outlook. And it's a very positive outlook of curiosity. Did I answer your question or did I answer another one? I don't know.

Yeah. I was wondering if you could. I know you've mentioned sort of ADHD as well. Is that something that you're sort of involved in?

My next book is called Normally Weird, Weirdly Normal. And it's both a personal book in terms of my own kind of childhood and onwards. my understanding of the way that my mind works and many other people, autistic, dyspraxic, ADHD, et cetera. I think it's, to me, it's a very important thing because the first thing you'll get now is, of course, most changes like this are always seen as cynical, changes of understanding, not changing them because this is something that people have been for many years. It's the same thing that we see in terms of gender diversity. Anything that stops something being yes or no anything that stops being binary. And I think that especially when we get to the biological world, you know, there is not it's such an incredible, bizarre, fascinating, hound of, you know, so many different things. And, you know, as we see with genetics, you know, we go, so is this nature or nurture? Well, actually, and we see this beautiful kind of blur. And for me personally, you know, I was very lucky. What happened was I didn't go seeking a diagnosis. What happened was a wonderful young man called Jamie Knight, who I happened to see on social media and I just followed him on social media and immediately received a message from him saying I'm really glad to see you you've just friended me I would love to talk to you about neurodivergent model and it was his and this is something that fascinates me as well which is why there's so many people you know bipolar as well there it requires an outside voice to make you understand what you've been carrying with you inside all this time. So I know a lot of people say things like that. They'll go, aren't we all a bit like this? And you go, yes, that's the thing. If you're a bit like this, it's quite manageable if it entirely done. And I really because of the amount of masking and the way we present ourselves socially in society, I think people don't realize how many people live lives of, you know, to use a thorough line, you know, of quiet despair. Yeah. For me personally, My life until I was fifty two and a half years old was entirely really defined by anxiety, though no one knew because I covered it up. I would wake up with anxiety. I would then everything I would look at in the day, every single episode of Infinite Monkey Cage up to that point, if you could have heard the inside of my head. It was in constant criticism mode. So you might hear someone flowing and bouncing off all the ideas. But there was a voice inside that just said, oh, you've ruined you're ruining this. Oh, God, that was a terrible thing to say. Oh, God, that's going to get misinterpreted. And then, of course, on top of that, you have, you know, suicide ideation and the depressive thoughts and all that stuff. And, you know, to not have that now. And of course, the moment that like last night, I was doing a comedy show, which it's run by a lovely comic called Mark Nicholas, who's autistic. And it's a space, very free space for lots of people. Last night, I think, was in particular autistic comedians, but where people can just be free to really talk about what they want to talk about in a very funny way. The conversations I have afterwards, I can see how many people, I mean I notice it in particular with older women who've been diagnosed with autism, their freedom that they have been given sometimes in their 60s, in which they've lived their life thinking they're shit, they've found out that it's just that their mind works in this particular way and the freedom that comes from that. And I know that we'll see a lot of cynicism towards this. And I know there was cynicism from some of the people that I work with as well. But all I can say is that my inner life is entirely different. And I think that's what that's what all my work is based on. I think certainly the vast majority of it is I want people to see lots of different potentials. I love people leaving a show. If maybe I've been talking about you know a stellar nursery or whatever and knowing that when someone is looking at the sky they're looking at a different thing to what they looked at the day before and when people have new ideas and understanding of the way that their psychology may work knowing that they now have a different potential or just a little bit more happiness. You know, all of those things, that's what I think art and science is about. Both of these things, when we use them well, are about showing new potentials and giving us new ways of using our senses. I think the answer is getting longer, by the way, as well. I'm so sorry. I hope you've got one of those text things which just, you know, manages to adapt this all for you.

I know you touched on sort of some shortcomings with sort of university systems and school systems. and the sort of Scottish model, which is now the American model for school of sort of picking up different credits across different disciplines. Are you involved yourself in sort of promoting your view of sort of education in a way?

Not really. I mean, apart from the fact that it is something that I very happily talk about and often put into conversation. So I think, you know, as a rank amateur in everything that I do, you know, what I'm I'm kind of, you know, I've got lots of weird little platforms in lots of strange places. And, you know, I'm very often performing in libraries and bookshops and schools, whatever. And and that's a chance to kind of throw out those ideas. And again, have a lot of very often, you know, often get a lot of teachers and librarians in the audience. So, you know, it's just a chance to talk about those things. So I have no official involvement. I'm not very good at official involvement. I'm not very good at sitting in meetings and things like that. So I'm much better at jumping up and down on whichever platform I've recently fashioned. Yeah.

And would you be able to tell me a bit about the Cosmic Shambles Network? sort of how that's, how that came together and how it might have changed sort of since you started?

Yeah it was, it began with my friend Trent who used to come to a show I did called The Book Club which was where I used to, amongst other things, read out from 1970s novels involving giant crabs with accordion accompaniment, just traditional art there. And he used to come along and then we became friends and then we started a thing called The Incomplete Map of the cosmic genome in which I would interview just scientists after we have got. I mean, it's not up anymore, but we interviewed, I don't know, 200 scientists, some of whom were just at the very early stages, some of them who were still studying at university, some of whom were very well established and well known. I would just talk about their passions and I would always ask them this one question. One of my favourite lines of Charles Darwin's is when he talks about being in the rainforest, just being almost nature shock, this incredible variety of butterflies, of beetles, of orchids, whatever it might be. And he wrote in his journals, today my mind has been a chaos of delight. So I would always ask people, what is your chaos of delight? And so we built up just this really big resource of lots of scientists talking. And then we just decided to enlarge it. So I do a podcast with my friend Josie Long, which is about books, book shambles, which I've done. I mean, I started doing podcasts in 2005, I think it was. So we started doing that under the Cosmic Chambers umbrella, and then I started making little science documentaries. And because it takes so long in the media world to get anything done, the beautiful thing is with Trent, I come up with an idea or he comes up with an idea and we go, let's go make it. And what's broadened with it is there's still a lot of science content, but there is quite a lot of art content. And I also think like the shows that we do together, the Nine Lessons of Carols for Curious People, You know, one of the things that's very important to us is the diversity of who the speakers are, is to make sure that whether it's sex, gender, ethnicity, whatever, when people come to our night, they see a real variety of representation of people. They see people who are both brilliant, wonderful speakers talking about many different things. And you don't go away going science is a pursuit for old white men. Yeah. So that that's also, I think, especially because we're living in a world where, you know, fascism's foothold is is unpleasantly widening. And so I think, you know, that's and a lot of the mainstream media, I think, are very milk soppy and milk soppy. You wait till you see what that thing translates that as. And, you know, there's a lot of kind of protection of the status quo. So having this arena where I can just go, right, I have no shame in talking about some of these rights. You know, I'm an old white guy. I've got, you know, when you get dealt the cards of being an old white guy, you've got a lot of passes and a lot of places to go, which other people have to really fight to be in. So I also think that's important is to make sure that people know that we're not all just going, I still want you to be old white guys. You know, you have to get ready. It's like when sometimes there are venues that I used to play when I was on tour and I very rarely play them now because they go with we filled our quota of old white guy comics or whatever. And rather than being crossed, you go, yeah, that's the kind of that's what you have to accept if we have so many more voices and so many different stories.

So is that something that you're trying to build with the sort of shambles network? 

Yeah, it's one of you know, it didn't start off as the initial thing, but like everything, you know, we're always changing. And I really do feel that the more diverse the voices you have, the more stories you And that to me, you know, whenever I hear an old white guy author going, I mean, you can't even get published if you're a man anymore. I suggest first they go to a bookshop and see how many books by men there are. But secondly, what a much better world when you have, you know, to me, it's a poem that I did a show called Weapons of Empathy. And that to me is what, you know, reading is, is the more voices from more, you know, this kind of idea that we have, that we all basically are set, given the same set of, you know, it's every time someone goes, I mean, it's getting harder and harder for someone from Eton to get into Oxford. And you go, look, you've been running the country for a long time now, and you might believe in the kind of divine right of kings or that actually, well, you see, as a fan of Francis Galton, I realize that I'm very lucky. I have the genes that mean that I have a stately home. That's my, my genetics is that. And that's such a puerile and ridiculous and very kind of self-satisfied way of looking at it. And I realize I always go back. I'm going to misquote this, but Stephen Jay Gould, he said, I don't revere Einstein too much because I think of all the Einsteins working in the fields. And I think that's the thing, you know, where you go. I think of that with my friend Alan Moore, who, you know, wrote V for Vendetta and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and all those other wonderful things. It's a brilliant novel. Jerusalem is, you know, Alan was brought up in a pretty poor area of Northampton, and he's ended up becoming the most important comic book writer of the 20th century or ever, really. And I think what an incredible mind he had to go from that and become established. And then I go, it only takes someone having a mind that wasn't quite as good as Alan's to know that they didn't get any of those things. They lived the same life. You know, it's that horrible thing, which is your life you're born into is probably pretty much the life that you will die in as well. So if you're born in poverty, you've more. And all of those things to me are also. They are scientific questions. They are questions here. Whenever people say science shouldn't get involved in politics. You know, I get a weird thing where if I I try to because people are very quiet about it and I've seen a lot of dehumanizing, for instance, of of of non-binary and in particular trans people. And so every now and again, I just try and put up something that's supportive towards the different. And, you know, there'll always be less of a complaint then that I shouldn't be allowed to present a science show. And you go, well, actually, we don't really have, you know, when we get into the world of psychology and why we are who we are, the equations are not nearly as fixed as they are for the equations of light. And, you know, to have that malleability, I think, is a really important thing.

Your book as well, Bibliomaniac, when I first reached out to try and interview you at Cheltenham Science Festival, your agent said that you'd got lost in a bookshop or something there.

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there. I think actually, because I, whenever I do Cheltenham, I always end up doing lots of different things. And I think I must have, it must have, I was probably just in the Oxfam or something like that. And yeah, so it's highly likely. So I apologise for that. Once I see those book spines, oh, I have to check every single one.

But yeah, it's the, I sort of read a couple of reviews of sort of previews of the book and everything, and someone sort of put it in the context of an information paradox that you're sort of, especially with technology and sort of AI and stuff like that, There's so much information out there that makes sort of choosing a book both a pleasure and a torture, really. I was just wondering if that is something that you've sort of consciously sort of brought out the book within that context.

One of the most important messages, and I should have put it in the book, because I think I started to talk about it when I was touring the book, which is you don't have to just because you've started a book, you'd have to finish reading it. And people were shocked. And then I've now started to get messages going, oh, my God, I've never realized, but you're right. And again, this is another school rule that we've carried into our adult life, which is I've started this book. I must finish this book, whereas I am a very I'm a real flibbity jibber. Again, be interested to see what comes up there. But I'm a flibbity jibber in terms of I I become fascinated in something. And then at page 70, the burden of not burden, but the beauty of the ideas that we know means that I reach for another book. So I'm always playing tag. You know, there are certain books that I some books I do. I would reckon it's probably 10 percent of the books that I begin in any year are finished. not because I got bored of them, literally because the excitement of them propelled me into something else. You know, but whereas, you know, this year there are in particular. Yeah, there's I mean, a book I'm recommending to everyone. So I'm going to recommend it's not a science book. It's called The Lasting Harm. It's about the Jelane Maxwell trial by Lucia Osborne Crowley. And that was a book that I read and has really filled me with kind of fire in terms of you know, today that when we're talking today, of course, the Giselle Pelico trial has come to an end. And, you know, you see that and you read about kind of some of the abuse scandals and it has to put fire in the bellies of more men. Otherwise, we're really failing dismally. But yes, I do. There are certain books I will finish, but I love that's why sometimes people say, well, God, you seem to know everything. And I go, no, I know almost nothing. But again, that broad, broad puddle is I've got lots of bits in my head and that's how I work best. That's why I could never be a scientist. I don't have that patience and tenacity. You know, I mean, like I couldn't be an astronaut. I couldn't do any of those things that require real focus. And I used to beat myself up about that. But now I go, that's my skill is I can like, you know, a good example would be when I was in the Latitude Festival. I interviewed probably 18, 19 authors and scientists and I did my final interview with Alexei Sell and I walked off stage and someone came straight up to me and went, oh my god, is there any chance you can interview Irvin Welsh now? The bloke who's meant to be interviewing him has disappeared. There's a bottle of whiskey and 500 quid in it for you. I went, all right. So I went on stage and I hadn't read Irving Welsh's book and all I did was write at the start as we walked up I said Irving just say yeah you know anyway I wasn't doing this interview and I haven't read your new book let's have a chat and then halfway through I said I've never asked this question to an author before in one of these events but so what's your book about then? And I realised that I have an adaptability, that my skill set is not being Melvin Bragg going very deep or whatever, though it doesn't mean the conversation can't be deep. It means that you can throw something at me and I go, OK, yeah, let's make it.

Have you always had that ability to just think on your feet and work like that?

I have, but I used to see that as a very negative thing. So one of the first things when Jamie Knight, when I was chatting to him, that made me go, hang on a minute, this thing that I've really beaten myself up about, I would always leave the stage thinking I'd let the audience down because in the train journey I will be going and then I'll talk about that and then that will be a very clever thing I'll do and then I'll do that and then I'd get on stage and I'd just be talking incredible you know well one of the heckles that I've got used to is someone shouting out breathe please breathe you know because I don't leave any gaps just talking talking talking. And I counted that as being this terrible thing, which meant I'd never delivered what the audience wanted. And however well they reacted. And then I suddenly realized, hang on, the reason the people come back is precisely because they don't know what it's going to be like. You know, I had there was a friend of mine, Mike, who sadly died, Mick rather, sorry, a friend of mine, Mick, who sadly died a couple of years ago. And he used to come to see my tour shows. 10, 12 times. And I'd say, Mick, stop paying. I'd just get in contact with my social media. And he said, no, I'm always going to pay six. They're always different. I said, oh, I know. And then he would say, you see, that time he did. And, you know, I saw that as a negative. And I think that's what a lot of people do is, you know, the very, very narrow corridor of normality means that when you're bumping your elbows against it, you sometimes don't realise that that elbow bumping is creating sparks that are really interesting and really needed. You only see the negative of what is actually, you know, it's like if you ever watch Maggie Derham Hocop, you know, when she talks about now she looks back and realises her dyslexia was also a key into the world which she's gone into and been such a great kind of, you know, flag bearer for the world of astronomy and stars. So I think, yeah, it's something that I always had, but I thought was something that was really shit and that was a failure. And now I go, yeah. And it's like, you know, I don't worry about. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I think it's and I love seeing, you know, there's nothing more. You know, when I I'd never realized this. There was there was a man in tears when I played Lois Doff and his wife came up to me and said, He's going to come over in a moment. But it was a bit overwhelming. He said, I've never heard my head on stage before, because what he heard was the way his mind sounds. And I think, again, that's something that we can do when we're honest as human beings. It allows other people to go. I thought I was the only one. And, you know, there are so many people in so many different situations who believe they're the only one. And sometimes people live their whole life with that.

Yeah, I was going to ask if you've had any sort of notable reactions to some of your performances over the years and whether anything stood out or touched you in a way? 

Do you know what, it happens all the time in terms of because I'm very open and I'm normally around before a gig and after a gig. I'm not someone who kind of goes, I've given the people their things and now I hide in the dressing room and my limousine driver comes. I, you know, I love the connection you can make with an audience. I love the fact that people feel that they can trust me enough that they will sometimes tell me stories afterwards. You know, last night's gig was, in fact, you know, even if I use the example of the last two gigs that I've done, so last night and the night before, Last night, a guy came up and just could see, he just went, oh, it felt like it was a real person. I just really enjoyed, you know, and I've not seen performance like that. And that was really a lovely thing. And then the night before, there was a woman who's had a terrible two years. Some awful things have happened to her. And she came up to me and she went, I haven't really laughed properly for two years. And tonight I, you know, and then we ended up having a drink together and chatting about some of the horrible things that she's been through. So, you know, some people probably think it sounds like I'm blowing smoke up my own ass, but it's what I really that connection with people has become more and more the more when I wrote a book when I'm a joke and so you that was a real. Because some of it's about mental health and how we become who we become. And I think that opened up people even more. I suddenly realized again, like I was saying about the quiet desperation thing, how many people are walking through life, hiding who they are, terrified that they are weak and foolish. And sometimes that makes people very cruel. And sometimes it makes people just very melancholy. and very dissatisfied to be alive. And I think it's a really important thing. You know, it's in the same way with, you know, with science communication. I think part of the thing that I love is every time, like recently, every now and again, I talk about how much I like looking at walls. Right. And I have this one day I was looking at a wall in Darlington Station. It's a huge, great big red brick Victorian wall. And I just started thinking about all the different hands that have been in that process of building that wall. and the thoughts behind that wall and the steam trains that will have gone, you know, past that wall. Then I was coming into Euston and I looked at all of the trees that grow horizontally out of those cracks and I thought, isn't that a beautiful thing, which is, you know, nature finds a way. It will go, you know, I finished building the wall, we built a proper strong wall and then nature goes, ah, you left a little crack there, I'll be growing out of that. And knowing that when you talk about things like that, people go, God, I never really... Now, it's a great, you know, it's the cure for boredom. Like, I am, you know, I'm not good on boredom. Oh, really? But I'm very rarely bored because I keep finding new things to go, why is that like that? Oh, God, that's really beautiful. Oh, that, you know, just looking at the moon over the last few days, well, you know, the week that we're recording this, The moon has been so bright and the clouds have been so illuminated. And every night when I walk back late from a gig and I see maybe what planet I can see in the sky as well. And it doesn't matter about knowing the names of the stars. It doesn't matter about knowing all about the constellations. The first thing and the most important thing that matters is as you look at that, do you get a real sense of the beauty of what it is to be alive and curious in the universe? You know, walking back, what was it, one in the morning last night? And I just ended up, it took me half an hour to do a 10 minute journey because I just kept looking up, seeing the way the clouds were changing the moon.

That sort of outlook towards the universe around you can be in a similar way to sort of the information paradox. It can be quite overwhelming to think of all that spans around you and makes you shy away from it. But embracing it and remaining curious about it is quite empowering in a way, I guess?

I think it's really important. I think it's a bit like, you know, there was a book, The Importance of Being Interested. I wrote about not being terrified of the size of the universe. that the size of the universe isn't really a problem that's very high up in terms of the issues. The problems we're dealing with are very much, you know, within the first 10 meters around us and then the planet as a whole. They're the problems. The fact that there may be 200 billion stars in our solar system alone, that's big. It's really big. But it's not a problem. It shouldn't be a problem that that should be. It's like when Chris Linton will often say, he says, I don't use numbers too much, because if you keep using different numbers, he worries the audience start to think that he has a special mind that goes. And when I say two hundred billion, I can actually picture. And of course, you know, there's a point for all of us with numbers. where you just get to it's big, very, very big. And the bigness of it is enough for, you know, obviously, if you do specific research or whatever, but overall going, OK, yeah, the universe is really big and that is an amazing thing. And it is beautiful sometimes. I think for a lot of people, one of the first moments of kind of existential anxiety is when you think of the size of the universe. I remember there was a thing called, it wasn't factors of 10, but it's something like that. And I don't know if you've ever seen it. It was a Canadian, I think it was Canadian, might have been American actually. And it would start off with an image of a couple having a picnic, and then it would go out by a factor of 10. So it went further and further out the universe. And then it would go further and further in, so it would then come back to the picnic and go into the cells and go into the atoms. And the first time I saw that it was, you know, I remember just standing there and feeling wobbly at the size of it all. So I think it's important. to also go, this is so big. And then it's very important to go. You know, the thing which I just think enough not enough people deal with is the rarity of this planet, the fragility of life. You know, and we're watching, you know, we're going to watch this under the Trump administration. We're going to watch them smashing up the beauty and we're going to watch them with this total lack of imagination that says this is just a small period of time in a very rare planet. where there are this number of colours and this number of possibilities.

Yeah and I don't know whether fear is the right word but a lot of people do have fear around science in a way of just being out of their reach in a way. Yeah. Do you think that's why comedy and science perhaps go so well together in a way? 

Yeah I think it's creating a friendliness and I think it's creating a thing which says, look, if you're going to study for, you know, and hope to win the Nobel Prize, yeah, you really have to, you know, spend there's a lot of work involved in that. But if you just want to and I say just there, I probably should say that bit of just being interested, that bit of Each time you get a little bit of an idea of the universe, when you think about the speed of light, I mean, doesn't that sound a strange thing when you start thinking about the speed of light? Because the light around you now just feels like you're in the, you know, just light. The fact that that light is moving, the fact that when you look at the stars you're looking at the past, the fact that when you dig down on an archaeological dig you're going further and further back in time, all of these different perspectives, it doesn't matter if you don't understand the equations that might be involved. And I think a lot of people, they try and read a science book, very often they'll pick up something far too hard and then they don't get it. I remember when my dad, he started coming to Infinite Monkey Edge in his 80s by then and he started to buy science books. And I would sometimes say, oh, dad, don't read this one yet. I said, because you've not really thought about science in since you were at school in the 1940s. Start with this book and never be scared of reading a comic book that explains the idea and never be afraid to read a beginner's guide. you know, don't just go straight into the, you know, it's one of the reasons that I really love the writing of Jana Levin. Her book, How the Universe Got Its Spots, mixes her talking about very big ideas about the universe with also then just the story of her and her partner trying to survive in a not very nice flat in Brighton and trying to acclimatize to all the problems they had moving from the US to the UK. So it's this one about the universe And it's also about the taps still broken.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my background is in philosophy and philosophy of science. I think the equivalent book for me was Sophie's World. I don't know if you've read that. Yeah. That's sort of similar in a way of taking all these big ideas and grounding them in something a bit more everyday.

You know, how many of us actually need to read the critique of pure reason? Well, what we can probably do, though, is read an interesting book that explains because I often find with philosophy and I think some sometimes true in science as well, which is it's important someone's done the working out. and it's important to know when you look at the back of the book that there's a bibliography and there's footnotes so you know this is based on but actually reading Critique of Pure Reason would be a waste of most of our time but we can take away all of that working out that can you know went through to then get to the point of going is ought etc.

I was also just wondering if you would just sort of tell me about your experience with Cheltenham Science Festival. Oh yeah. Did you go to Cheltenham school as well?

Yeah, but that's not on the link. I did not enjoy that at all. That really wasn't the thing that was, but it was that Sharon Bishop, who did a lot of the creative programming, this is probably 15 years ago, was really important in terms of going, how do we put on more events that are really approachable for people? So it was thanks to her that we started doing a cabaret night, which was based around some of the shows I did at Christmas. So we would mix up lots of different ideas and again put in a bit of music and a bit of comedy and that kind of stuff. And so I started by helping her bring some of the other ideas that I'd done in other places there. But she was really creative thinker in terms of how do we make sure we get as many people in as possible. And and then I've just kind of stayed, you know, it's I love coming down there. Sometimes I can only come down for a day. Sometimes I'm there for four days. I'm always you know, people will often say, can you come and interview this person, you know, this astronaut or this particle physicist? and that's always a joy and it's always, it's a big difference in the green room if you go to the Cheltenham Literary Festival or Book Festival or whatever it's called. The green room doesn't necessarily feel like a very gregarious area. It feels like a lot of people sitting with their PR or whatever on separate sofas. Yeah. If you go into the green room in Cheltenham Science Festival it's filled with people excitedly talking about, oh my god I read that paper you did, oh my god this thing, and it's like, you know, it's people fuelled on, you know, scientific philosophy and jellybeans.

Yeah, thank you. Can I just finally ask you as well? We sort of touched on it earlier, but I was just wondering how your connection with Brian came together as well?

You know, it was a very haphazard thing. It was, I met him sometime probably in 2005, and then we didn't see each other again. His agent at the time said, oh, I think you might be interested in this guy. And then I was on a pilot, which was, I was, I was only a guest on it. It was actually doing it all down the phone and with three scientists. And the producer, I think it was our producer, Sash, she's now our executive producer, Sash, she kind of heard it and went, oh, that show doesn't work. But I think there's something in the way that Brian and Robin were talking to each other. So it just happened by chance. No, so the original programme, and then we got four episodes. I think initially the BBC were quite scared of it. And they gave us these kind of like, oh, you need to have comedy sketches in it and stuff. And then by series three or series four, it became the show that it is now and has remained like that. But it was yeah, it was all quite kind of haphazard. And then obviously, you know, we spent a period of time touring together as well. You know, that's over now. But we you know, we for probably five years, we were on the road together a lot. And, and it's, you know, it's a proper comedy double act as well, because we don't really see each other apart from when we make the show. So it's like we get together, we have a lovely time doing the show. It's always an exciting thing to do. We both really enjoy doing it. And then we go off, you know, it's like all those, those great, you know, all the double acts we read about. Yeah. Weirdly enough, they didn't spend time having dinner parties with each other. Not too many libraries to visit.