Robin Ince – Bristol Festival of Ideas

As a connoisseur of comedy, Robin Ince has spent decades mining our eccentricities to create gags – and watching other strange individuals do the same. And for years on The Infinite Monkey Cage he has sought – sometimes in vain – to understand the world around us. He now unites these pursuits to examine the human condition through the prism of humour, exploring the key psychological questions we all ask ourselves: why do we make the choices we do in life? Where do anxiety and imagination come from? How does our childhood shape our life choices? Do we all have a need to perform? Is failing good for us? And are we more than our brains? Informed by personal insights from his own life as well as interviews with a bevy of A-list comedians, neuroscientists, psychologists and doctors, he offers a hilarious and moving primer to the mind.