For the love of science
Combining science and comedy isn’t as crazy an idea as people might think, Cosmic Shambles’ Robin Ince tells James Croot.
British comedian Robin Ince is coming here this month on a mission – to change people’s perceptions of science.
The 48-year-old self-proclaimed ‘‘interested idiot’’ is heading to our shores for the first time to host Cosmic Shambles Live –a seemingly unlikely mix of comedy, music and science. It’s a combination that has enthralled audiences in the UK, especially as the typically three-hour showcase contains plenty of surprises.
‘‘I’ve been doing these sorts of shows for 12 to 13 years,’’ the enthusiastic and effervescent Ince says down the phone line from his home in the UK. ‘‘We always do one at Christmas and this year we had the astronaut Chris Hadfield introducing Duran Duran, which was kind of pretty crazy. We really like to mix things up. What everyone on the stage shares though is a tremendous passion for what they do.’’
Aside from science, Ince admits to being a huge fan of cinema. It’s late at night at his end when we talk and he paints a Hitch cock ianesque portrait of himself sitting alone in his darkened office working on a book about death.
‘‘Your interruption is also the set up for the scene in the film where I’m strangled and no one believes I was murdered,’’ he deadpans, as we begin our conversation. ’’You’ll be played by Cary Grant – don’t worry.’’
Talk immediately turns to Kiwi cinema. Had I seen the new Pork Pie?
‘‘It looked like they were trying to make The Fast and the Furious, something very different to the original,’’ he proffers, having only seen a trailer so far.
Ince says he was a huge fan of Geoff Murphy’s 1981 road movie, as well as Sam Pillsbury’s 1982 adaptation of Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s The Scarecrow.
‘‘That has got a couple of really creepy moments in it. I love all the recent stuff too – Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do in the Shadows are just superb.’’
He then reveals that they have been trying to get Wilderpeople‘s Sam Neill as part of the Cosmic line-up.
‘‘We know he’s got to be somewhere else to do some dubbing, but he has said if he finishes early he might just come along for a night. He’s got a wonderful humanity about him. There are certain actors who do, like Sam, Tom Courtenay and John Hurt. When you watch them perform, you just know that they couldn’t convey the kind of humanity they do without possessing it themselves.’’
So while he’s still only hopeful of a Neill appearance, the confirmed line-up includes Ince’s regular collaborator Josie Long, UK ‘‘stand-up mathematician’’ Matt Parker, oceanographer and physicist Dr Helen Czerski , solar scientist Professor Lucie Green, Kiwi comedian James Nokise and ‘‘Nanogirl’’ herself, Dr Michelle Dickinson. A trio of New Zealand musicians have also been confirmed – one for each of the three venues. Lawrence Arabia will perform in Auckland, Jon Toogood in Wellington and Hollie Smith in Christchurch.
‘‘It really is just a variety show except jugglers are replaced by astronomers and mathematicians and people doing big experiments,’’ says Ince, who is also scheduled to make an appearance on Three’s topical comedy show 7 Days while he’s here. ’’The hope is that it makes people enthusiastic about science. It’s really a celebration of big ideas, with a lot of music and comedy as well.
‘‘Sometimes people think ‘how does that work?’ because they’ve gotten used to the idea that science is kind of, ‘hello, welcome to science’ and it’s a very dry thing. But of course, the best science popularists – Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, David Attenborough – all have that passion and it comes across.’’
Ince says he’s always reminded of a beautiful moment when an artist said to Feynman, ‘‘I see a beautiful thing and when you pick it apart it becomes dull’’.
‘‘And then he explained that the more you understand about why a flower is the colour that it is, that makes it ‘more beautiful, not less’.
‘‘With our show, people seem to quite enjoy one moment laughing at some standup by Josie Long and then going, ‘wow, that’s a brilliant graph that guy has put up there’. I think sometimes in mass culture we have presumed people are not as smart as they really are. I don’t mean knowing loads of things – just that people like being taken on a good ride. We’re aiming to show people that evidence-based thinking is not only the best way to live your life, it also leads to the best stories.’’
Ince believes that fostering a love of science and evidence-based thinking is even more important in a world today where a rise in intolerance has been coupled with a rise of ugly feelings, motivations and nasty cynicism.
‘‘There seems to be a desire to drag us back to the cave. For some reason, science has got in some people’s minds as the bad guy. For a couple of generations of people, progress was just what happened, and that led to an increase in tolerance and an understanding of minority or ‘outsider groups’. Now suddenly there’s a feeling that you can’t take things for granted any more.’’
Events of the past year have proved that, says Ince. ‘‘I was with [popular UK astrophysicist] Brian Cox both times when we predicted the night before the US Election that Trump wouldn’t win and that, using scientific knowledge, we wouldn’t be leaving the European Union.
‘‘So I don’t believe any of his bloody science any more,’’ he laughs.
‘‘It’s true that science does quite often have a liberal bias – more often than not results give evidence for tolerance. But to those who say scientists shouldn’t get involved in politics – the problem is, science has always been a political act. Our world is run on science. Whether it’s vaccinations or communication tools, they are all a result of science. And the important thing is getting the information out there to make sure that future generations survive and thrive.
‘‘Look I’m 48 – I can sit back when the apocalypse comes because I wasn’t expecting to get way beyond 60. But, for my son, I don’t want him living in a world where he just has to fight the whole time and battle. It seems such a waste when we have such easy access to information thanks to the internet, but we’ve instead allowed people to use it to just pump out propaganda.
‘‘And the trouble is that some of the most incendiary things get the most hits on the internet. People say, ‘let’s publish this because this guy is this awful, insidious, venal fool, but boy oh boy does our ad rate go up’.’’
Ince says it is also surprising to him that there are those who can’t comprehend when they are being abusive online.
‘‘In the last 40 years, we have had an enormous amount of technology handed out to us which we haven’t had to build or understand. We’ve just got it in our hands and that’s kind of made us blase, I think.’’
Cosmic Shambles Live will be at Wellington’s The Opera House (April 8) and Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal (April 10). For more information, see cosmicshambleslive.com