When his girlfriend (fellow comedian Sara Pascoe) headed off to Melbourne for some gigs, John Robins readied for some serious ‘me-time’ … until he realised that she had complete access to his online search history! The incident provides the starting point for Speakeasy, the latest one-man show from the comedian and writer who also co-hosts a weekly Radio X show with Welsh comic Elis James.

Has the browser history experience taught you anything? For example, do you now delete your search history regularly, or have you just stopped looking at some stuff now...?
I'm slightly concerned that my [tour] press release has suggested I'm some kind of depraved porn addict. This is not the case. However, I am now much more aware, as we all should be, about quite how much Google knows about me, and how easily that information can be accessed. That said, I'm not a conspiracy theorist or obsessed with the fact the government are monitoring us, I'm not that guy!

Without giving too much away, what are some of the other things you talk about in the show?
Rum, twitter, talking to strangers, gin, love, tea, genre misappropriation, Heineken 

After leaving university, you moved to the West Country and lived in what’s now become known as simply The Bristol Comedy Flat with comedians Russell Howard, Jon Richardson and Mark Olver. Were you all doing stand-up before you lived together?
Yes. We were all at different stages of our career progression as well, which really helped all of us I think. In fact, we did a few gigs at the time where Russell headlined, Jon opened, Mark compered and I did ten minutes in the middle. And that kind of summed us up. What a bill! It means each could advise the other, put in a good word here and there, replace people for gigs they couldn't make, or weren't really doing any more. They were great times.

What are your plans for the coming months? Any projects on the horizon you can discuss? Or plans to return to the Edinburgh Fringe?
I've decided to take a year off from Edinburgh to recharge my batteries. It'll be my first year of not doing a full run of shows since 2006. I think it's okay to take a break every decade! It feels very strange, like your first year out of school, but I'm really, really enjoying touring last year’s show, and looking forward to enjoying the summer - which, until now has been an endless process of previewing shows and stressing about poster designs and accommodation and that kind of thing. This year I've booked into a Ray Mears Bushcraft course! What a treat! I'm also working on something with Elis for the autumn. It'll be a live show. We're super excited. And there may be another thing, but that couldn't be at a more basic stage of development.

By Dave Vincent

John Robins plays The Glee Club, Birmingham on Friday 25 March.

Tickets and more information HERE