Robin Ince returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with two brand new shows, \u201cChaos of Delight\u201d and \u201cThe Satanic Rites of Robin Ince\u201d This Sony award winning comedian is renowned for his fast paced, smart and funny shows where he packs so much into an hour long show the audience comes out exhilarated and slightly reeling. His two new shows are bound to be similarly frantic. <\/p>\n
He tells me about his upbeat and optimistic fringe show \u2018Chaos of Delight.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show is inspired by Darwin\u2019s comment that his mind was \u2018a chaos of delight\u2019 when observing the previously unseen creatures and flowers of the rain forest, but then we go off on tangents as usual. It has bits of physics, psychology and plenty of stupid stories from my own life and others.
\nIt is an attempt at a celebration of human possibilities and a shirking of the melancholy and terror which surrounds us when we tap into the media. It is partly inspired by the book Factfulness and Hans Rosling\u2019s word – Possibilism – he wrote that he was not an optimist but a possibilist, evidence of advances showed that a better world for human beings really is possible and we have been progressing towards it, let\u2019s not slip back. \u201c<\/p>\n
Ince is well known for being a bridge between art and science. I asked him if the popular belief that we are science people or arts people and have formed two separate cultural camps is an entirely artificial construct? <\/p>\n
\u201cI think some people think there are different forms of brains, science-y or arty, but in the end, we are all curious if given the right tools and the right inspirations.\u201c<\/p>\n
Generally of an upbeat disposition despite the current political climate, I ask if his latest show will encourage us to remain optimistic and curious about the world around us.
\n\u201cWe have to make sure we haven\u2019t given up\u201d He continues \u201cAll the time, I meet inspiring people changing people\u2019s lives for the better, how dull to be the pessimist who sits at home, does nothing and proudly states, \u201csee, I told you we were going to hell in a handcart\u201d<\/p>\n
Ince\u2019s second fringe show is the Satanic Rites of Robin Ince , which he describes as \u201ccelebrating the horror films and stories that were my solace as a misfit child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerned for the safety of Fringe goers I ask if there will be actual human sacrifices? Ince reassures me \u201cThere will be no sacrifice during the show, the volunteers for the satanic altar will be taken to Greyfriars Kirkyard some time later. \u201c Good to know.<\/p>\n
Intrigued by this youthful fascination with the spooky I asked him why horror stories caught his imagination as a child. He explains \u201cI bought my first book of horror when I was eight – Alan Frank\u2019s Horror Movies – a core text for The League of Gentlemen too. It was full of images of frozen Nazis, skeletal zombies, screaming vampires and Boris Karloff. It was how I learned left from right. I knew my Lugosi from my Karloff before I knew which shoe was which, so if the book said \u201cleft, Karloff in The Isle of the Dead\u201d I realised which was which. \u201c <\/p>\n
He continues \u201cThe written word will undoubtedly create the most spooky and I think helps prick the imagination and make it breed and grow.\u201c<\/p>\n
Clearly something about this early foray into the world of the spooky and supernatural did foster his imagination. This may go some way to explain his choice to spend his life creating and performing comedy rather than a more conventional career. \u201cMost of the horror nuts I know were the outsider kids, rarely was horror something that appealed to those who were picked first for games and the alpha males of the playground. There is something about strange turns of imagination that appeal to children who don\u2019t fit in the world as it is. Our fears of death and what may lurk in the shadowy corners of the cellar are all part of the excitement of human imagination, a fun game of \u201cI know it is a pigeon trapped in the attic\u2026I think I know\u2026but what it could it be?\u201d<\/p>\n
Still taken by this arguably morbid interest at a young age I wonder if he would you let his young son read the horror stories that fascinated him as a child? It seems like this is a moot point, as he explains:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor my birthday, I bought a boxed set of the Tales from the Crypt comic books, before I got a chance to open one, he had read all five volumes and loved them. I wouldn\u2019t let him watch things like it, but I think reading, whether comics or stories, means you are still in some control of the imagination. All the best marks for my stories at school were when I was liberally inspired\/thieved from magazines like Sinister Tales, I think he language has grown lovingly more lurid since he met \u201cThe Cryptkeeper\u201d<\/p>\n
Chaos of Delight, Gilded Balloon at the Museum 15th-26th August 13.30<\/p>\n
Satanic Rites of Robin Ince Stand Comedy club 2, 14th-26th August 19.35<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"