Reuben Kaye knows better than anyone the havoc that one little joke can wreak. In just a few months, the Australian drag comedian has had shows cancelled, drafted in extra security at venues, and had his phone combed through by three police bodies. ‘That was pretty interesting,’ he says. ‘Not only have they gone through a bunch of pretty awful death threats, but they also know exactly what my asshole looks like, with both the Mayfair and Cavendish filters on.’

All this over one jab at Jesus, which Kaye cracked in February while appearing on Australian current affairs programme The Project. ‘The fact that this is the joke that stopped the nation is pretty funny,’ he says. ‘Especially considering it’s on the gentler side of the jokes I tell.’ More recently, he's gone viral defending his gag on Australian TV show Q+A, where he was pitted against a panellist who claimed Christianity was a persecuted group. As a gay man of Jewish descent, Kaye could only laugh.

‘Comedy plays a huge role in puncturing the hyper-inflated monsters in society,’ he says. ‘That's why I love doing it. It’s a clenched fist that hides a whoopee cushion.’ In his show, The Butch Is Back, that fist is aimed at shame and those who enforce it. Gender visibly warps onstage, with drag-king make-up exaggerating rather than masking Kaye’s hypermasculinity, while an artillery of filthy jokes, glitzy costume changes and cabaret (Kaye crams 15 songs into an hour, backed by a six-piece band) fires out. At a time when drag queens are increasingly villainised, Kaye makes a furious, vivacious rebuttal. 

‘Ten years ago, I thought my act would be irrelevant within three years,’ he says. ‘But no, it’s still as dangerous and razor sharp as it’s always been. Cabaret is the original punk.’ The transgressive bohemia of cabaret runs through Kaye’s blood: his grandfather toured with the Yiddish theatre in Poland, before meeting Kaye’s grandmother (who ‘should have been a movie star’) building railroads in Stalin’s Russia. ‘There are many examples in Jewish culture of humour being used as a coping mechanism,’ says Kaye, who touches on intergenerational trauma (and how it intersects with his queerness) in the show.  

Kaye feels gratified now to see the number of queer teenagers who attend his performances with their parents. ‘It’s a dirty show, but it’s also a family show,’ he says. Above all, it’s a space that makes joy and authenticity feel possible, in a small act of flamboyant rebellion. ‘Drag is about tearing down what no longer works, shooting an arrow into the sky and aiming for utopia. And it does it all while looking incredible.’

Reuben Kaye: The Butch is Back, Assembly George Square Gardens, 15–27 August, 7.50pm; The Kaye Hole, Assembly Checkpoint, 4 & 5, 10–12, 17–19, 24–26 August, 11.50pm.