Two decades after they first began making things together, Robin Ince and Josie Long are taking their long-running creative partnership on tour with 20 Years of Shambles — an evening of stand-up, poetry, conversation, digressions and whatever else happens when two endlessly curious minds share a stage.
Robin Ince and Josie Long have been making things together for two decades — from podcasts and live shows to increasingly unpredictable collaborations.
Josie remembers first encountering Robin at a gig when she was 15, recalling that he wore a leather jacket and “seemed very cool”. Robin has a rather different memory: Josie had a temporary tattoo that was essentially a piece of A4 paper sellotaped to her stomach.
They properly became friends when Josie was around 21, after Robin established his Book Club shows. Josie became part of a space that would go on to become an important creative home for a generation of performers.
“It changed my life — and a lot of other people's — by building a space for stranger, softer, nerdier comedians to make up delightful weird stuff,” says Josie. “So then when Robin invited me to make a podcast with him in 2005, I was so excited. It is really funny to think how few podcasts existed back then, and how little we realised that what we were doing was trailblazing.”
For Robin, the appeal of working with Josie has always been the freedom to experiment. “Both of us carry a lot of different ideas in our heads and neither of us are aiming to win, or to go ‘I was best, I got most laughs’,” he says. “I really enjoy being in Josie's company both on and off stage, so it's just that kind of creativity.”
Twenty years of working together have produced plenty of memorable moments. Josie recalls performing with Robin at Laugharne, where an unexpected hen party appeared among their usual cardigan-clad audience and Robin ended up doing a strip show while singing The Smiths and ruining his favourite shirt. She also remembers performing alongside The Cure at the Apollo as part of Robin’s Nine Lessons shows — an experience she describes as one of the privileges of her life.
The tour will also revisit some of the people and experiences from their years of working together, including previous guests and interviews — some genuinely wonderful, others they look back on and think, “that was a bit of a weird one, wasn’t it?”
And there are plenty of other memories along the way. Robin recalls one in particular: “Like when Alice Lowe's child ate my James Baldwin book.”.
Josie says: “Robin is always, always innovating and it's so exciting to be around. Intellectually he is relentless and I am very inspired by him. And he is incredibly generous, he's always creating shows and fun gigs for friends to participate in, and I feel lucky to be a part of it!”
And what happens when the two of them are given a stage together?
“An absolutely chaotic time!” says Josie. “But like Robin's show the other year, I hope it's a ‘chaos of delight!’. We love to bounce off each other's ideas and fast brains, and we both have a lot of earnest love for people and performing, so together I think it is a very humane and borderline insane experience.”
Robin hopes audiences leave with something similarly infectious:
“I hope they will take away the excitement of being creative, and leave thinking ‘Yeah, let’s just make stuff!’
We aim to share a real sense of joy and camaraderie, not merely on stage, but I think the people that we play to, they know we're all in it together. There is an activist bent to what we do and I hope people feel encouraged to keep speaking up and I hope they know that they're part of something. Sometimes people do turn up to a show and they're feeling down, looking at the oppression of the world and they go ‘oh look at those two weirdos - they're alright!’”
Tickets are on sale now and are available here
Josie Long & Robin Ince: 20 Years of Shambles - Nov 2026
Sat 7th - Cardiff The Gate
Sun 8th - Bath Komedia [Matinee]
Tue 17th - Birmingham Midlands Arts Centre
Wed 18th - London Tabernacle Theatre
Sat 21st - Leeds Glee Club [Matinee]
Sun 22nd - Glasgow St. Lukes
