Hey, Rhona

As a photographer I used to know used to say to me when he was busy, or pretending to be, “I haven’t had time to fart�, which is a disgusting thought and a feeble excuse but true. Anyway, without wasting a further minute, here’s what happened:

“Och I hate interviews,� she drawled as soon as she picked up the phone, an encounter made only more painful for us both by the fact I knew I had to ask the kind of boring questions she’s probably been fielding the entire tour. Questions like:

Why are you returning to stand up after five years out?

(Answer: she was writing two novels, is turning one of them into a screenplay and is in talks to make them both into films, moved house, and was enjoying playing in her women’s football team, and didn’t want to tour).

It ends up being kind of gruelling for us both. She talks about “sober reflection� and “moving on�, and if interviews are therapy it all sounds so rote she probably worked through all these issues approximately 371 journalists ago. But still, she humours me. And looking back over the chat, despite her reticence she offers an incredible insight into the stand up life.

“When I stopped stand up, I was really bored with it. It was never something I wanted to do continually throughout my life, but I fell into it, and it was a way of life for a while. As I grew up I found it limited as a form of expression and kind of went off it.�

When she returned to the stage for a one-off cancer benefit gig last year, she was surprised to find she enjoyed it, and a friend persuaded her to hit the road again.

“When you’re over 40 you don’t care so much about what people think, and ironically, you’re starting to do your best stuff. But it’ll be my last year of stand up. I just feel there’s so many people doing it, it’s like going back to an old lover. I enjoy dipping in and out, but I don’t know if I want to do the whole thing. Years ago, I could have gone major, very high up, but I’ve got other things I’d like to do and I want to move in other directions. I don’t like to be tied down and put all my eggs in one basket.�

She’s stopped drinking. “A lot of stand ups don’t grow up. It keeps you hedonistic. A few females are coming up and a couple have been successful. It is more male dominated because a lot of comedians are very damaged. In my generation the comedy scene was awash with cocaine, or mental health problems.

“It’s very hard as a singular woman, or a gay woman, to have lived that life and survived it. It’s a very self-destructive life, that I’ve had to drag along with me and repair.�

There was her mainstream break on the first season of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, which sounds as if it was not all it cracked up to be: “In this business, once you’ve got that break on TV you’ve got to do all that nob jockey stuff, go to things, talk to boring coked up people in TV, and I can’t be a*sed.

“Perhaps at the time I made some wrong choices. I’ve made some absolutely sh*t decisions, but if I’m given the chance to earn money reading an autocue for a while I’m going to do that. It’s been a huge journey, and it’s not just about stand up or being on TV. I feel a bit more in control and contented with what I’m doing."

The thing is, she might be a serious, headstrong person in real life, but on stage, it makes for the perfect stand up persona and her show at the Unity a few days after the interview is superb.

She acknowledges of one of the major contingents of her audience – “lesbians will go and see a lesbian do f*cking anything,� she smiles – and I’m pleased to find some of the topics we were talking about are actually part of the show (“I don’t remember most of my life. It’s like the film Momento where I go around trying to work out what I’ve done.�) so perhaps not entirely that deathly serious. Her act hits the mark with most of the audience – she is irasible, but interesting, witty and wise, and when she hangs up her mic it will be stand up’s loss.