Jordan Gray worries about juggling too many projects. With a new stand-up show and sitcom, plus various other creative endeavours in the works, the Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated comic admits to ‘teetering on a bit of burnout.’ However, three years after her breakthrough second Fringe show, Is It A Bird?, and massive exposure from recreating its nude finale on television, she’s still riding the wave. ‘My human rights are being eroded by a rising fascist regime,’ she smiles wanly. ‘So working is a good distraction and feels slightly defiant. I’m overclocking and really, really pushing myself.’

Ofcom received almost 1600 complaints after Gray performed the faux-arrogant ‘Better Than You’ on Channel 4’s Friday Night Live, a song about her trans experience during which the 36-year-old’s jumpsuit was whisked off, before she hammered at the piano with her penis.

‘I’m very proud of it, more and more each day,’ the erstwhile Musselburgh resident recalls of that iconic moment. ‘I learned in real time just how many people are not fans of the transgender situation. With the news so weighted against us though, it’s important to express how overwhelmingly positive it was. People loved it or didn’t care. A very vocal, angry minority cared a lot though. Tory MPs called for my arrest. They thought I’d just walked onto live television and done it spontaneously, instead of with fishing wire and a nice fellow named John whom I’d rehearsed with about 100 times.’

Surprisingly perhaps, Gray is grateful for the angry rhetoric. ‘At least now I know it’s there and I can try to navigate it and de-escalate it.’ A self-described ‘very left-leaning, well-meaning idiot,’ she tries not to be prescriptive about politics. But after the Supreme Court’s ruling in April that women are legally defined by biological sex, her latest show, Is That A Cock In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Here To Kill Me?, has inevitably acquired ‘a slightly missionary role.’

As a consequence of her fame, she’s gratified to be asked to represent the trans community. But Gray says it’s also exhausting having to justify her existence over and over again, even if ‘being put on a pedestal means lots of people feel protective towards me.’ The once-struggling musician, who made her television debut on The Voice in 2016, calls herself the ‘cockiest woman in comedy.’ And there’s no denying her front. She performed her first stand-up gig in a dressing gown, only a day after breast enlargement surgery. ‘I felt comfortable because I’d already had ten years in pop music,’ she says. ‘Strong painkillers helped too.’

Her cowgirl swagger (she’s mastering guitar for this latest show) isn’t just Gray’s commitment to a Wild West theme. ‘As someone who plays piano for a living, I’ve sat down my whole career. The guitar makes me feel like a rock star. It’s easier to play high-status when you can walk around and gesticulate.’ Still, her onstage braggadocio betrays vulnerability. ‘Just like everyone, I’m nervous and scared for the future. I’m doing my best to navigate everything without hurting anyone.’

Her new hour relates the four categories of death threat she’s received, with a small part of her worried about life imitating art. Without being morbid, she reasons that there are worse things ‘than me being publicly shot,’ which would at least ‘move the needle a bit for transgender people. Threats would be taken seriously then.’

Gray had to employ extra security at the London Palladium but affects a blasé attitude about the danger now. ‘I’d rather nobody tried to murder me with a gun,’ she confirms. ‘It’s just that I’m more worried about having to deal with some confused politics. Everyone’s drip-fed information in their own bubbles. And I’m only trying to make people laugh, while holding onto some artistic integrity.’ In 2022, Gray’s ‘big reveal’ was nudity. ‘Everyone experiences it… sex and death are pretty universal,’ she suggests. ‘What’s odd about committing to a show about death threats, though, is doing it every night, regardless of what mood I’m in: staying jovial but not making it too light.’ With nothing so likely to frighten the horses as intersex nudity, the show does feature an ‘explosive’ set-piece. ‘Even if you know roughly when it’s going to be, it still does something to your brain. I like engineering moments of real vulnerability in me because there’s no substitute. Good improvisation is better than anything I could write because you’re seeing human synapses firing live.’

Indeed, finding the appropriate tone, staying in the moment, says Gray, is ‘a funny old balancing act.’ Quite literally. ‘You’ll always see me standing on one foot,’ she discloses. ‘It began subconsciously but now I intentionally pull these strange yoga poses. I’ve realised it’s what keeps me from switching off after the 200th show. Silly as it is, I don’t think I could ever give it up.’

Music serves a similar purpose. ‘I’m very lucky to have this strange, incredibly low suspension of disbelief. In an immersive situation, I’m there straight away. Songs can instantly overwhelm me. It’s hard keeping this show from becoming pantomime. For the first few nights, those are real tears. But later, on an exhausting night, I could find myself going through the motions. The songs keep me along for the ride.’ Her closing number is ‘a gift I’ve been given by the universe that I can completely lose myself in; it helps me pull it out night after night.’

That sense of cosmic envelopment also applies to Gray’s ITV2 sitcom Transaction, set in the magical realism of a supermarket night shift. Echoing cult American comedies such as Community and 30 Rock, which often trapped their ragtag ensembles of eccentrics in fluorescent-lit, late-night scenarios, Gray felt she had licence to be ‘woozy, kooky and psychedelic.’ Pastiching classic film and television, the series also nods to Spaced, which is appropriate as Nick Frost plays Simon, boss of the comedian’s rogue shelf stacker, Liv.

A very busy Gray (who has already begun writing a second series) has also worked with Disney, advised Matt Lucas on trans portrayal for a football-comedy pilot, been offered numerous acting roles, and was approached to create a Shakespeare-related project for the National Theatre, all while shopping around a film script. What’s more, after penning a couple of ‘not very good’ novels when she was ‘very, very drunk,’ there’s an offer on the table for an autobiography ‘which is very sweet but it can’t just be a memoir; it needs to be more than the sum of its parts.’

She’s certainly carving a unique path. ‘I love having had a quote-unquote “failed music career” because it puts me in mind of a David Brent-type character,’ she reflects. ‘It’s a fun thing to mine for comedy, putting your heart and soul into an industry, taking yourself so seriously, then just swapping and realising it wasn’t as important as you thought. I wouldn’t change my first 22 years as a man either, even though I’ve never told a joke as one; I transitioned when I was a musician. But I sort of retain ownership of 200 years of sexist jokes, so anytime I say anything that’s broad, it has a fizzy edge. I’ve experienced male privilege and the persecution of being a woman in male-dominated spaces, acted as an emissary for both camps and have access to the language of both.’

With that dual narrative, Gray believes she fulfils a ‘weird niche’ for a lot of people. ‘If you’re naturally inclined towards transgender people, everything can be taken with a pinch of salt and seems fun. If, as a woman, you feel your rights are being trampled on by transgender women entering your spaces, everything I say probably sounds horribly sexist. Both sides feel victimised. I’m trying my best to negate that by staying friendly and humble.’

Jordan Gray: Is That A Cock In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Here To Kill Me?, Assembly George Square Gardens, 30 July–24 August, 9.05pm.