"I suppose I have learned a way of being able to make money while spending my life doing revision."

That's how Robin Ince describes his unique brand of cerebral comedy. The man described as looking like "a trendy sociology lecturer" - a label he loves because he has never been called trendy before - is probably best known for supporting Ricky Gervais on tour and acting as his whipping boy off stage.

But when Ince isn't playing to 6,500-seater arenas his live show is quite different, as anyone who has seen his now sadly defunct Book Club will testify.

An aficionado of Sunday morning book sales, Ince made it his mission to find the unusual and the ridiculous in the printed word - from awkward non-PC language in scientific works to references to rape in supposedly romantic Mills And Boon literature.

Having made the decision to leave the books in his shed at home, his new monthly residency at the Three And Ten is centred on developing a new show.

"Every month will be a new hour," he says. "There may be some uncertain ideas in there, and sometimes an idea that starts off as a minute will become a 15-minute piece in the next show."

Ince's love of reading to acquire knowledge will certainly feature within the material, with the subject matter likely to focus on his two main hobby-horses, science and the media.

"There is lots of new stuff about evolution and why aliens haven't visited Earth," he says.

Over the past few years he has discovered his own direction, an endearingly rambling, intellectual style, at odds with the crowd-baiting, sweary, sex-obsessed comics often found performing at comedy clubs. He falls broadly into the same category as cult favourites Daniel Kitson and Josie Long.

"It has taken me years to discover my direction," he says. "For years I was doing jokes and thinking, I shouldn't have said that.'"

The direction hasn't endeared him to everyone though, with an anti-Robin Ince site appearing on Facebook, as well as the occasional disastrous gig when a stag party is in town.

"Stewart Lee told me if you have a bad gig take a look at the audience afterwards and ask yourself how many people you would want to have a drink with," says Ince. "I think once you have an agenda you shouldn't just give the audience what they want.

"There is space for lots of different types of comedy. In music there are lots of different categories, you don't just need pop and bland boy bands, but in comedy people say you are either funny or you're not. You have to remember it is about the individual's judgement."

In terms of his own ambitions, aside from changing the world through charity shows such as last month's Stand Up For Animals - where he was set about by Bill Bailey's son while dressed in a bearsuit - Ince is refreshingly small-scale.

"It is a really interesting thing to do the big theatres and arenas," he says. "But I have no ambitions to gain notoriety or fame. I'd be quite happy to tour theatres that hold about 400 people for the rest of my life."

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