INTERVIEW: Robin Ince, Greenbelt Festival, Boughton Hall, UK 2026

INTERVIEW: Robin Ince, Greenbelt Festival, Boughton Hall, UK 2026
Interview & photos by Pete Gardner 

Comedian, Broadcaster, Neurodiversity advocate and all round nice guy, Robin Ince, spoke at this year’s Greenbelt Arts and Music festival, talking openly about the challenges of his own ADHD diagnosis, and calling for greater awareness and openness of neurodiversity in society, as well as reading out a few of his poems, accompanied by the amazing guitar work of King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk.

Robin’s book “Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal – My Adventures in Neurodiversity” is available now in paperback, and well worth the read, especially if, like me (and at least half of us here at 100% Rock) you have recently found yourself in the “Oh, it all makes sense now” Club. 

I caught up with Robin for a few minutes before he went on stage, at this years Greenbelt Festival.

Pete: First thing, Robin, thank you so much for talking to me. ⁓ I’ve got to tell you, I am a huge fan. When I saw you were playing here at Greenbelt, I got really excited. I probably started listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage when it first started back in 2009. Don’t tell anyone, ⁓ but I was working in Sydney at the time, and when working late in the office at night used the company’s internet to secretly download it. I was devastated to hear you were no longer on the show.

Robin: Yeah, basically, the problem happened, which was, it was a political problem or humanitarian problem, which was, I kept being told that in my own personal account, my own personal time, I should keep quiet about trans rights and trans allyship. I shouldn’t really mention about Donald Trump being a convicted sexual abuser. ⁓ There were so many different things that kept coming up. ⁓ I’ve written a piece on my Patreon about what went on for five years, various things around the show, and I realised that I had a choice, ⁓ at one point they decided to say that they thought I was mentally ill, which is classic gaslighting, kind of.

When I wrote about it in my book, Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, I wrote about it almost lying. I removed all the blame and talked about the fact that quite often when you’re diagnosed and you’re much happier, that’s when people think you’re ill. Because they’ve known you as the person with the anxiety and ⁓ all the masks. ⁓ And they were really angry about that and I thought the idea that someone can say that they believe that you have mental health issues and also shush it will be our secret was deeply unhealthy. ⁓ I just made the decision that I wanted to be able to speak about any kind of LGBTQ allyship.

I wanted to be able to speak about the fact that we still have a huge culture of abuse in so many places and it broke my heart to do it, but I’ve never regretted doing it. I regret that the world is such that there are people at the BBC that believe that is going to offend the audience, if they follow me separately, obviously, because I’m not saying it on the show, because I think also that’s exactly the opposite of truth.

I think we’ve allowed so many aggressive and regressive voices to take over. But whenever I perform, and I perform the whole time, quite often I’m doing three gigs a day. I’m in the library, I’m in the school, then I’m in a little arts centre later on, and I play to audiences which very often will have a 12 year old in and someone who’s 95, and their values are the values that are not being talked about. They are the values of inclusion ⁓ and to me that was a very, very important thing.

So it broke my heart. Then what really I think I found quite upsetting was that I wasn’t even told they would be bringing the show back. ⁓ I was on a comedy website ⁓ and I saw that the Infinite Monkey Cage is coming back, who it was coming back with, and I thought that all that stuff again was deeply upsetting.

Because that show was very much in terms of the shape of it and what it became. My mind was quite an important part of that, including the name and all that kind of stuff. But I’m not bitter about it. ⁓ If anything, it makes me realise every time that I do a gig ⁓ and someone comes up to me and says, I have a trans daughter and they’ve not been able to leave the house for two years because they’re so anxious, or other stories that are even sadder, I go, no: The choice between making the thing that I love and trying to least in some way use whatever platform I have and whatever my voice can do, however limited that is, of saying there are loads of people who love you and include you in the world.

Pete: You’re here at Greenbelt talking on Neurodiversity and your book. I actually bought a hard copy of it, even though I’ve been listening to an audio book in the car. And I thought, while you were here, I’d get you to sign it. I only realised the one I got off Amazon was pre-signed!

Robin: My goodness. I even know where I signed that!

Pete: When I read the book, I found that it actually resonated very, very deeply with myself, exposed a few memories I’ve kept hidden for the last 50 years or so, with a few raw nerves showing up. My first question was going to be, after doing this to people, how do you sleep at night? But also, is this a common reaction you’re finding?

Robin: Yeah, I get messages pretty much every single day from strangers, which will say, ⁓ I didn’t know this about me, or I heard me, and it was something that you can’t know when you’re writing a book. I wrote this book five times, literally threw away four versions of it, totally, and started again. Because I was desperate to write a book that people would feel seen in, that people would feel included, that whether they were wondering if they were neurodivergent or they were neurodivergent or whether they had friends who were neurodivergent or family members. I wanted to make something that I hoped would be inclusive and empowering and it was very important to me, and I didn’t know whether I’d done that because you don’t know. It’s like writing a song. You write a song, you don’t realise you’ve written a hit or something that breaks people’s hearts, really until you’ve given it over to them.

And it was in Kettering, there’s a – no wasn’t Kettering, it was in Market Harborough – there’s a fantastic bookshop there called Quinns, and I got a message, because the proof copies go out to the book shops before the book gets actually properly printed and that was the first message I got was “my god I just found myself in the book”.

And booksellers of course, unsurprisingly, there’s quite a lot who are neurodivergent, because very few people go, “I want to make a million, how can I make a million? I know, I’ll run a bookshop in Market Harborough”. They do it because they love books, they do it because they love stories, they do it because they love sharing things, as you know from your own perspective, that desire to share the things that you love. It also makes me very sad to see how many people have lived their lives masking well, but living in a pit of self-loathing and anxiety, and that is why I don’t care what anyone says.

Do you know what? we can increase the sum total of happiness in the world. People say, “why have you got this?” And people have such attitudes. ⁓ And you go, why do you care? Why are you so hung up on this? Why are you hung up?

When I saw that Channel 4 documentary about ADHD, I thought, why do you want to make something that is going to make the sum total of unhappiness in the world greater, rather than the sum total of happiness?

Pete: I haven’t actually seen the documentary yet…

Robin: you don’t need to.

Pete: But my understanding is there’s a backlash against the increase in awareness in neurodiversity. Do you feel this backlash is going to grow or is it something that society is changing and can grow into?

Robin: Well, think the trouble is politically, it’s a very useful thing. A lot of the anti-trans movement actually is anti-neurodivergence as well. ⁓ We’re also seeing an incredible rise in kind of ableism as well and racism. You know, we look at what happened to Jason Arday, ⁓ which is truly, truly heartbreaking and you think, is that the society that we want?

So I think within communities people have greater understanding. I think within politics and within
the news media, they are generally a lot of regressive voices there because it’s much easier to say, “Oh, look at them”.

There’s a line I talk about a lot, James Baldwin, the great poet, playwright, novelist, so many things. And he said, I think the reason people hold onto their hate so firmly is if they let go of their hate they have to deal with pain, and I think that’s very true, But if you do start dealing with your pain, you find the possibilities that are waiting for you.

One of the things that I think is, people try and turn it into a self-indulgent thing to find out why your mind works as it does, it’s not a self-indulgent thing, it’s like dealing with your own trauma. If you deal with your own trauma, ⁓ you are able to become stronger, and when you become stronger, you are able to help other people with trauma. You’re able to notice it in people in a way.

You’re able to open up because you’re not hearing that voice saying don’t bring this up. You just talk to people. And when we are able to start dealing with our own trauma, then I think we become much better allies as well.

Pete: One of the things about neurodiversity that I’ve already discovered is the big advantages it carries with it. I read a great book by an Australian author called Lynne Kelly called The Knowledge Gene – I don’t know if you’re aware of it?

Robin: Yeah, I am

Pete: She talks widely in that about the advantages that neurodiversity brought to humanity before we had written language, in that people with ASD, with their attention to detail, they’re the knowledge keepers of the tribes. ⁓ People with dyslexia have a greater spatial awareness and are the navigators, and those with ADHD traits were basically the creatives and storytellers. We seem to have sort of lost that perspective, whereas we’re classifying these things now as a disorder. But it’s just part of the rainforest of diverse minds that are out there.

Robin: Well it’s much easier to call it disorder, isn’t it? Because if you do that it’s always turning that person into the problem as opposed to the world being a problem. On the abuse thing, I was watching a documentary about Rolf Harris, which is deeply, deeply unsettling. One of the journalists talks about the fact that when his wife went to work at the BBC, she was told, don’t get into the lift with Rolf Harris.

Now that immediately means that it’s now that person’s responsibility. It’s not the responsibility of the institution to say, why are we employing someone who we know is a predator – it becomes well we told you he was a predator so why did you get in the lift! So again you turn it into a disorder and you have therefore made the problem that individual and we’re doing that all the time.

If anyone said, “do you know what – we can cure all neurodivergence!” – what you mean is, shall we close all the art galleries? Should we get rid of all the science? Should we get rid of all of these different moments of joy and eccentricity? Should we get rid of most of comedy? Should we get rid of that? The Western thinking is a very binary yes/no thinking a lot of the time.

When you look at some of the indigenous Australian beliefs ⁓ which were poo-pooed and looked down on, because they were turned into an actuality as opposed to a possibility such as, you know, a lot of those things like the dark emu and stuff like that, it’s not that the indigenous people go, “And then there’s a giant emu”. It’s that they have a story that is in a superposition of being real and also a myth which helps you understand the sky. And I think that it’s like the William Blake way of thinking of having your different realities of saying, “do you know what, let that person have that reality because it doesn’t get in the way of my life”.

Pete: If somebody is discovering right now they think they might have ADHD or they realize that they have traits on the autism spectrum, what sort of advice would you give them at this stage? Because I know, especially in the UK, getting a diagnosis is difficult. Do you have any sort of…life hacks?

Robin: Well, I think one of the things is, it’s really important to find your people. Quite often perhaps if you’re in an office, there might be a lot of people working there that are not your people. It can be very difficult to find them which means going online or whatever, find some of the voices, there’s more and more voices out there who are openly speaking about neurodivergence and many of them, most of whom I know, are very happy to communicate with you. I think it’s also very important to know, before your official diagnosis should you have one ⁓ The most important thing is for you to go, “but this is who I am, and I know I haven’t got the certificate yet.”

Like, I didn’t go looking for a diagnosis. My life would still be filled with anxiety itself, loathing, suicidal thoughts. If it wasn’t for an autistic stranger called Jamie who got in contact with me and said, I think we need to talk about your mind… Know that you don’t have to have the paperwork to accept who you are.

So many of the artists you will love, so many of the things in your record collection, so many of maybe the books on your shelf, you will find out, I know why I’m attracted, because they are a neurodivergent voice as well. So surround yourself, ⁓ and it can be very hard because there are a lot of negative voices out there, but also know that the negative voices in the press and in politics do not represent, I believe, many, many people in the UK and across the world. There are many people who are ready with open arms.

Pete: Looking into the future, do you feel that there will be greater acceptance of the individuality, the rainforest, of people as opposed to the monoculture? Or are we at a crossroads where we have a danger of hitting what the right would like us to do and all be the same?

Robin: Well, I think… one of things that I think is, I realise we’re never going to able to persuade everyone. And, you know, that we’re always going to end up having the same battles in the world.

One of the problems is, empathy is a huge spectrum. I mean, I always find that the most amusing thing, which is, you know, we’ve always been told that autistic people have a problem with empathy, but I actually find, you know what, a lot of the time it’s neurotypical people who seem to have no ability to imagine how other minds work and no wish to believe that.

So I think sometimes it’s not about resignation or surrender. It’s going, we might not be able to change the world, but can we change that person who’s there, there and there? Can we include that person? I think of someone like Sinead O’Connor, you know, for most of her career, she was being brow beaten and ridiculed, but what she left in the world was something beautiful and powerful and inclusive.

And to know that many of the voices that are oppressing you will be long forgotten when the voices that you love are still being shared and adored.

Pete: I’ve got to tell you this, one of my kids was diagnosed with ASD last year and we were talking about it, and we decided that the real issue in the world isn’t the people who are neurodivergent, it’s the neurotypicals, because they don’t have any color in their world and they can’t think outside the box. My kid actually sort of renamed them as neurobasics. We decided it’s just another form of diversity and like with all these things there’s a spectrum and the one thing that defines neurobasics is this need to conform and be the same. ⁓ Which is where you go to the extreme, this is where bigotry comes from.

Robin: Yeah, well that’s also why I always think one of the problems I might have had at the BBC was I’m no good at deference. I talk to everyone on the same level. I think include everyone. So whether it’s the runner or whether it’s the director general, I’m not bowing to one and shouting at the other to go and get me a cucumber sandwich or whatever. Everyone is the same. I think respect is something to be lost, not to be, you know, gained.

I was doing a little interview about Alan Moore, the great writer of Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls and all those things, and Alan said to me, he thinks the neurotypical system is to move vertically: climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, more, more, more, more, more, look down on more and more people.

He said, “I think neurodivergents more often than not move horizontally ⁓ You’re not interested in knowing how much power has that person got. You’re interested in the curiosity that lies in that person.”

The full video of the interview:

Category: Interviews