Tonight, I recorded this week’s Grouchy Club Podcast with comedy critic Kate Copstick.

In 31 minutes, it included the growing trend of crowdfunding for the Edinburgh Fringe. Plus comedian Will Franken becoming transgender Sarah Franken… The risk of casting comics Lewis Schaffer and Patrick Monahan in a play… The increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show… Disabled Romina Puma and sex toys… Abnormally Funny People… Robert Downey Junior lookalike Phil Nichol… Kate Copstick’s stage performance with Richard O’Brien, her encounter with Stephen Sondheim and her risk of being sued by Jason Donovan and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

But, after I finished the podcast at what I thought was a good point, we kept talking and got onto the subject of gay Soho nightclub Madam JoJo’s:

John

Sex?

Copstick

Sax. Piano, base, drums and sax.

John

So you were performing on-stage, singing musical numbers?

Copstick

It was a little girl’s dream. You’ve got the microphone, the sparkly frock, the make-up. I was really, really lucky, because the theatre queen audience is so smart. They know their performers, the West End shows: all of that. It’s a really intelligent, knowledgable audience who also have a massive appetite for filth. It’s the best audience you could ever have for comedy.

John

You should do a musical at the Edinburgh Fringe next year.

Copstick

Oooohh! It’s on my bucket list – to get back on stage, before I die. Somehow, somewhere, sometime. I’d love to do another musical. I’ve done quite a few. What’s on your bucket list?

John

Before I die?

Copstick

Yes.

John

I’d prefer to die first, then I don’t have to bother.

Copstick

There’s not that many things on my bucket list. I want to meet a gorilla.

John

A guerrilla?

Copstick

A gorilla.

John

A one-way trip to Syria…

Copstick

A GORilla.

John

Why? They’re dangerous things.

Copstick

They’re amazing animals.

John

They’re like bears. Quite nice small and stuffed as children’s playthings. But I wouldn’t want to meet one up a dark alleyway.

Copstick

There MUST be things on your bucket list.

John

No.

Copstick

You need to think about this, John. It could happen any day.

John

Roll on.

Copstick

Edinburgh’s a dangerous place.

John

Frankly, I’d just prefer to die.

Copstick

All those hills, all those people that hate me… You might just get caught in the crossfire.

John

Anyway… Your bucket list.

Copstick

Meeting a gorilla. Getting back on stage. Spending a reasonable about of time with horses.

John

Like Catherine The Great?

Copstick

Not… Not as in… No…

John

Not having Biblical knowledge of horses?

Copstick

No.

John

It all ended badly for Catharine.

Copstick

What’s your favourite smell?

John

Smell??? I dunno. Strawberries?

Copstick

Really?

John

I have no idea. I’m making it up.

Copstick

My favourite smell is horse.

John

Stale leather and shit?

Copstick

No. Actual horse…

John

Precisely.

Copstick

You bury your face in its neck. Or when a horse breathes on you.

John

This is some sort of bizarre Equus thing.

Copstick

No. It’s wonderful.

John

This is sexual. You know this is being recorded?

Copstick

It’s not remotely sexual. It’s very calming. Horse and lavender.

John

Together?

Copstick

No, separately. Horse, lavender and the sea. the smell on a beach.

John

That’s just salt and stale seaweed.

Copstick

You are belittling one of the great joys of my life. The smell you get when scrunching down a beach.

John

On a proper beach, you can’t scrunch because it’s sand. You can only scrunch on shit beaches like Brighton.

Copstick

The beach I’m thinking of is scrunchable.

John

Where?

Copstick

St Abbs in Berwickshire. It’s stunning. I went there as a kid.

John

My mother was brought up in a cottage next to the sea in Wigtownshire. I scattered her ashes in the breakwater there when she died.

Copstick

I can’t believe you don’t have a favourite smell.

John

My toenail came off this morning. Look. I have it in my pocket.

Copstick

Oh my God! I will show you a picture of that woman’s maggoty vagina again.

John

I’ve seen it. It has lost its shock value.

Copstick

I can’t believe you are carrying around your dead, decayed toenail.

John

It happened this morning.

Copstick

Maybe there’s a toenail fairy.

John

I’m hoping to find a foot fetishist on eBay. There’s probably good money to be had out of dead toenails. It has dried blood on the inside – look. Do you want to see the real toe?

Copstick

No.

John

We are in the Mama Biashara shop. Do you want to buy it? There must be some voodoo equivalent in Kenya, isn’t there?

Copstick

Yes, it mainly involves mincing albino people.

John

What? Gay albinos walking funny? Or putting albinos in a mincing machine?

Copstick

Yeah. The mincing machine. Tanzania as well. They believe that the penis and wotnot of albinos is… and children. So there’s a big trade in kidnapped albino children.

John

And mincing them?

Copstick

They kill them and eat them.

John

With what? Sprouts?

Copstick

John, we are talking about killing and eating kidnapped children here…

John

Humans are supposed to taste like pork, aren’t they?

Copstick

I don’t know. Maybe albino children are more like chicken breast.