Comedians on Ethics – Fern Brady: Milo and Me

Fern Brady is often asked to talk on TV, and this becomes problematic when she's asked to share the stage with different types of swine.

Much like stripping, comedy often involves degrading yourself for money. At least when you’re a female stripper and walk onstage people sit up and go: 'this will probably be great.' Whereas when you’re a female comedian and walk onstage people generally use that time to go for a poo or check their Twitter.

I worry that when I die I’ll flashback over every horrifying gig I’ve had to do for money over the years. There’d be the time an entire audience chased me out of the picturesque English village of Hampton Court screaming: “GO BACK TO GLASGOW, SCOTTISH BITCH.” Or the time I did a gig at a Curry and Comedy night: as I stood in front of silver tureens of chicken korma and onion bhajis, people muttered ‘slag’ under their breath. It turned out no-one was allowed to eat until I'd finished. As recently as last week a student loudly – and I believe deliberately – farted during the opening five minutes of my set.

But this is all depressingly everyday fare for circuit comics. The real ethical dilemmas over what work you should accept start once you do more TV stuff. One of the worst people I ever met in my life was at a chaotic TV runthrough two years ago. A runthrough is where they test if a show idea will work for TV, and this one definitely didn’t work. I imagine all the producers involved were sacked afterwards.

They got a bunch of comedians and media types to get drunk and debate serious issues. I knew this was a mistake in the run up to it. For example, the producers repeatedly asked me if I would like to defend the innocence of Ched Evans, the footballer accused of rape.

As I got in trouble for fighting when I was at school, to middle-class media luvvies I’m basically Al Capone. But, I did warn them not to let me get too drunk. They disregarded it, so hell mend them. The next thing I remember is shouting at this awful private school wanker and him looking quite frightened. Then, for reasons still unclear to me, they released micro pigs onto the set. I dunno what people expect to happen when they release cute pigs next to a drunk woman. Everyone got pissed off when I grabbed the pigs and started kissing them. I whispered in their soft bacon-scented ears that I would never eat pork again as the animal handlers wrestled them off me.

The producers kept trying to force coffee on me, but by now I was intent on going daft at the cravat-wearing goon who was surprisingly meek and sweet natured every time we stopped filming. Turns out Poshy McPoshface was a then relatively unknown Milo Yiannopoulos.

I find it mind-blowing that this lad is now famous. I know for a fact the guy just wants to be a comedian. He enjoys saying stuff to get a rise out of people but is somehow taken seriously as a political commentator.

I went through a phase of frequently being asked to go on serious news programmes as if I was a serious commentator (a live TV debate on the IndyRef with Owen Jones was the most surprising). I turned them down as I knew I’d talk pish, get bored and change my opinions from one minute to the next just to see what would happen. I now realise that I too could be Milo Yiannopoulos levels of famous if I went around confidently insisting all my mental political views were right, and could keep a straight face.