Robins grew up in Bristol and was educated at The Castle School in Thornbury, Gloucestershire and at St Anne's College, Oxford, where he read English, having reapplied to Oxford after an initial unsuccessful application the previous year. Following graduation from Oxford, Robins returned to Bristol, where in 2006, he shared a flat with fellow comedians Jon Richardson, Russell Howard and Mark Olver. At this stage his nicknames included: Figaro's Dented Lesbian, It's Not Pocket Science, Retired Unhurt, The Rag and Lone Man, Disappointing Fry Up and Leicestershire!
Career
Robins began performing comedy in 2005, and soon reached the semi-finals of the So You Think You're Funny competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2007, he participated in the "Comedy Zone" showcase at the festival. Robins appeared both as guest and as co-presenter on both The Russell Howard Show and The Jon Richardson Show on BBC 6 Music. In 2011, Robins performed stand-up on Russell Howard's Good News. On television he has also appeared on , Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Live from the BBC, Celebrity Deal or No Deal with Sarah Millican and on the 2013 Christmas mash-up of 8 Out of 10 Cats and Deal or No Deal. Robins also appeared on several radio programmes, including Matt Forde's Talksport show, BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth and BBC Radio Wales's What's the Story? In February 2014, he started hosting the Elis James and John Robins show on XFM with fellow comedian Elis James. In August 2014, the show moved to Saturdays, and was broadcast weekly 1-4pm. It is also a popular podcast, with a cult following, with over 12 million downloads as of July 2017. Robins performed in New Zealand for the first time in May 2014 during the NZ International Comedy Festival, with the show Where Is My Mind? Robins won Best Compère at the 2015 Chortle Awards. In the second half of 2016, Robins embarked on a tour show with co-host Elis James called "The Elis James and John Robins Experience". In March 2017, James and Robins won a Chortle award for their Radio X show. Robins has performed a solo show at the Edinburgh Festival every year since 2009, starting with Skinny Love. His subsequent shows were Nomadic Revery, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, Incredible Scenes, Where Is My Mind?, This Tornado Loves You and Speakeasy. All shows were also toured around the UK. He has also performed at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival and the Leicester Comedy Festival. In August 2017, Robins won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for his show that year, "The Darkness of Robins", which focused on the breakdown of his relationship with comedian Sara Pascoe and his personal life after the break-up. It was the first time he had been nominated for the award. In June 2018, it was announced that Robins would host a new upcoming game show for Dave entitled Beat the Internet. The show ran for 20 episodes and was not renewed for a second series. In February 2019 Robins launched a YouTube channel with his friend and fellow comedian Alex Horne. As of July 2020 they have 24 thousand subscribers. After five years broadcasting on Radio X the Elis James and John Robins show aired its final episode on Saturday 30 March 2019. On 2 April 2019, Robins announced that he would be hosting a new show with fellow comedian Elis James on BBC Radio 5 Live. The BBC show has been broadcast since 31 May 2019 and all episodes are downloadable as podcasts. Robins also writes an for the Metro.
Personal life
In 2012, Robins moved to London. Robins has described himself as "broadly vegan". Robins is a fan of Queen and he supported the band at their 2014–15 New Year's Eve show, where they performed with Adam Lambert. He is also a fan of Frank Zappa and Bonnie Prince Billy and runs the Bonnie Prince Billy Quotes Twitter account. He has often named his Edinburgh shows after his favourite music, e.g. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is a Godspeed You! Black Emperor album, and "This Tornado Loves You" is a song by American singer-songwriter Neko Case. Robins was previously in a relationship with fellow comedian Sara Pascoe. They split in 2016, with both using their experience of the break-up and its consequences to create successful Edinburgh Fringe shows. Since 2018, he has been in a relationship with fashion designer Coco Fennell. They became engaged in 2019.
