Robin Ince interview

The online comedy web series The Quest For Wonder, which has been made in association with the Science Museum, sees Professor Brian Cox, Robin Ince and their puppet counterparts taking a look around the world of science. Here, we chat to Robin to find out more...

What is The Quest For Wonder, and how the project came about?

The Quest For Wonder is a new web series for kids of all ages really. It's a science based comedy show with puppets. Professor Brian Cox has lost his wonder and, without that, he's, as we say, 'just equations with great hair'.

It came off the back of The Incomplete Map of the Cosmic Genome, which is a science archive I created with Trent Burton at Trunkman Productions. A couple of years ago we, and Melinda Burton at Trunkman, came up with the idea of creating puppets of Brian and I for a few Cosmic Genome shorts and then they later appeared in the music video for Monkey Cage with Eric Idle as well. So the idea of a full series came out of Cosmic Genome and then we were able to team up with the Science Museum to make The Quest For Wonder.

The puppets are awesome. What do you think of your puppet?

I am planning on stealing its hair, as it has more than me now. I think felt suits my natural grouchiness.

I think they are wonderful puppets, I might start sending them out to gigs instead of me.

Brian Cox: is he secretly a horrible human, or is working with him really as nice as it looks like it probably is?

The only problem with Brian is, his desire to tinker with physics means that he is constantly hopping in and out of time and other dimensions, and this can be confusing for him and all around him.

I also think that he is maintaining his youth by stealing the life energy of his co-presenters, I think both Dara O Briain and I have physically aged with unnatural speed since we started working with him.

Apart from that, we thoroughly enjoy working together. You can't have much more fun than making a living which includes standing in the middle of the Lovell Telescope on an autumn morning or talking about wormholes in the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in LA.

Did you attend the filming with the puppets, or did you add your voices before/after?

We recorded the voices first, then the filming began. Our habit of going off script would have made adding the voices afterwards a tricky business.

Of all the amazing displays and artefacts in the Science Museum, do you have any favourites?

I thought the recent Cosmonaut exhibition was, in the words of my 8 year-old son, "epic!" I love the lunar module model. I have done three events at the Science Museum recently, some with kids and some with adults, and the excitement you see in the eyes of people as they walk through a world of turbines, DNA, aeroplanes and apothecary accoutrement is a delight to behold. It makes science real and gives some sort of scale to human progress.

Would you agree comedy is an underused resource in terms of education, especially 'education by osmosis'?

Once you have someone laughing, they do listen more. The trick is to try and get the balance of larking about and information. I think the ability of people to take in quite complex ideas is underrated. Many in mass media have decided everyone is a flippant idiot or wants to candy coloured trash, when in fact, people are highly receptive to ideas if they are delivered with passion and a good story.

The Infinite Monkey Cage goes from strength to strength. When you started it back in 2009 did you have any sense it'd become a long-running, award-winning Radio 4 institution?

All I remember in 2009 was how excited we were to have the chance to make it. The first recording was over two hours long. It took us a couple of series to get the show right, now we hope it will at least run until the heat death of the universe.

Tenuous link: In the web series Brian has lost his wonder. Meanwhile you lost your 'wonder' for stand-up last year and quit?

I didn't lose my wonder for stand-up, it was more a result of tour exhaustion. I realised I was beginning to go the wrong side of mad, not the useful side that creates stand-up, so I decided I had to stop for a while.

I do the odd benefit [charity gig] and occasional solo gig and I imagine I'll create a load of stand-up again at some point, but if I tour again that will be some way off, perhaps a short tour in 2018. Instead, I am writing a book about stand-up (so not too far away from it) and what the act of stand-up says about the delights and problems of being human. Plus I'll be touring with Brian to work as his grand inquisitor.

Anything else on the horizon?

I have written for and co-edited another anthology of horror stories by comedians, Dead Funny Encore, we have another series of Monkey Cage soon, plus a few science documentaries, and I am working on writing fiction and non-fiction; a lot of tinkering really.

'The Quest For Wonder' series can be watched for free via cosmicgenome.com