Grace Campbell has revealed she had sex on the periphery of the Vatican, living up to the title of her new tour, The Lady Is a Tramp. The comedian, known for frank sets about her sex life, is currently touring the UK with the show, which debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.
Nepo baby label and comedy beginnings
Campbell, daughter of former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, addressed the 'elephant in the room' early in her career. 'I had to acknowledge it,' she said. 'I was 24 when I first ever performed at Edinburgh so what else did I have to talk about? I had no other life experience at that point so I will own the nepo baby thing before anyone else can say about me, especially now he's like relevant again.'
Her father's image has transformed from Tony Blair's right-hand man to the gentle voice of politics alongside Rory Stewart on The Rest Is Politics, currently the most-listened-to podcast in the UK. 'It's so weird. Teenagers love him,' she laughed.
Encouraged by friend and comedian Sophie Duker, Campbell booked her first gig and spent the day sick with nerves. 'And then there was an audience of two: my best friends, and then the other acts.' Her second gig was a competition, where she got drunk before and poured wine on a group of men giving her 's**t'.
Abortion and new tour
Her last show, Grace Campbell Is On Heat, explored non-monogamy, mental health, and being a woman visible on the internet. While writing it, she had an abortion, and the show shifted to explore the depression that followed and celebrate the women who supported her. She laughed: 'My dog had come on heat, then I got pregnant, had an abortion and was like, "Oh, perfect! The name really does fit the show."'
The Lady Is a Tramp was inspired by an older comedian who told her her approach was 'lazy' and she would never break into the mainstream if she kept talking about sex. Ironically, the tour includes a headlining gig at the London Palladium on November 7. 'The show is about people's perceptions of me and how I absorb what everybody thinks about me, whether it's online or men I'm dating or friends,' she said. 'There's a story of a man in a sauna who tells me my voice is so annoying that it's giving him a psychosis, and by the end it's about the duality of me basically. The lady is a tramp: I'm together and I'm also not.'
Politics and principles
Campbell, firmly on the left, revealed she pulled out of supporting US talk show host Chelsea Handler's tour last year because of Palestine. 'I pulled out of doing Chelsea Handler's tour last year because of Palestine,' she said. 'Some people were telling me not to do that but I just felt instinctively it was the right thing to do. People were worried about the repercussions dropping out was going to have for me. When I agreed, I just had no idea which is my fault for being ignorant. It's not even about me. It's the fact that I know that anyone who is still defending what's going on now, it's gonna age so f**king badly.'
On her influence on her father, she said: 'The fact that J.K. Rowling hates both my dad and me is something I'm proud of. He didn't even know how to talk about like a conversation about transgender people and now we speak about it so casually. One of the things that really helped him understand it was I would say I don't ever feel a physical threat from trans people, I feel physically threatened by straight men.'
Grace Campbell: The Lady Is a Tramp is touring the UK now and comes to the London Palladium on November 7.
