Nish Kumar on independence, the BBC, Nadine Dorries and performing in Scotland

In his new show Your Power, Your Control, the political comic will shed more details behind the events surrounding the infamous incident where a Brexit joke led to an angry crowd booing him off the stage - with one pelting him in the process.

That was in 2019, and while politics is no less divisive now, Kumar said the new show is only partly political, with the other part personal.

Asked if the show is likely to be more critical of Boris Johnson than the unredacted Sue Gray report, he told The National: “I hope not," but added: "I don't think the Sue Gray report is going to call him a c*** as often as I do. But we can live in hope.

READ MORE: 'Boris Johnson like a sleeper agent for independence,' says comedian Nish Kumar

“If Sue Gray's opening line is 'let's be honest, the guys a c***’ then I think that's probably what this nation needs to heal.”

But Kumar admitted the chances of that are “slim to none”.

Speaking on Zoom from Wales, the current stop on his UK-wide tour, the former Mash Report host is looking forward to heading to Scotland, saying he enjoys how comedians are rewarded for doing their homework on the politics north of the Border.

“I like how Scottish audiences will reward you for displaying actual knowledge of Scottish politics,” he said. “And the reward that you get is that you can really push the audience quite hard.

“If you show that you understand it, like the different cultural, historical and political traditions in Scotland, the Scottish audience will let you absolutely rip into them - it's really funny.

“I think sometimes people assume that when you go to Scotland as an English comedian, there's like an intrinsic hostility.

“But there absolutely isn't. As long as you show that you've done your reading you can be merciless, and the audience will absolutely go with you. It's really funny, and it's a really interesting thing to get to play off and play against.”

Audiences will probably best know Kumar for his TV show The Mash Report, which the BBC cancelled in 2021 after four series.

The London-born comic said he had little faith that the BBC, and public broadcasting in general, will survive the current Tory government.

He was highly critical of Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who currently plans to privatise Channel 4 and is threatening to remove the BBC license fee, ending the broadcaster’s 100-year-old funding model.

Being in charge of culture in the UK isn't quite the right position for Dorries, according to Kumar.

"I wouldn't leave Nadine Dorries in charge of a Sims family,” he told The National. “Ultimately I don't think public broadcasting in this country will survive much longer under the Conservative Party.

“They've just constantly got a gun pointed at the BBC's head and I don't think organisations make good decisions when they're constantly under threat of being dismantled.

“And the Channel 4 thing, there is no actual justification for it. All the justification is nonsense. The comparisons to Netflix, I mean, on two levels are completely nonsensical, given that Netflix is now actually going to be introducing advertising.

“And also the fact that Channel 4 serves a completely different remit."

The comedian said he was "almost loath to even start to indulge those conversations" about the topic because it "suggests that the arguments have an ounce of good faith in them, which they absolutely don't".

“This is just basically a government that is intrinsically averse to even the vaguest hint of scrutiny, and Channel 4 News has applied some scrutiny to the Government and so now they've decided the whole thing has to go.

“Nadine Dorries can't justify it in any way. I've read all the justification, I've read the articles. They don't make any sense.

“I wouldn't wipe my arse with something that she's written for fear that my arse would suddenly become unpleasant and reactionary.”

Among the other issues Kumar believes the UK has failed on is Scotland. He said the UK Government holds the country "in contempt" and revealed his sympathies for independence.

He said: “These are two things that I’ve said on stage doing comedy in Scotland.

"The first thing, I maintained that Boris Johnson is like a sleeper agent sent by Nicola Sturgeon to make the case of Scottish independence.

“I don't think any SNP politician has ever or will ever make a stronger case for Scottish independence than the existence of Boris Johnson.

“If you were teetering on the fence, I can completely understand how you would look at the situation and think, why are we aligning ourselves against Scotland.”

Kumar pointed to the 2016 Brexit vote, saying the values Scotland holds appear to be “increasingly at odds” with that of the Westminster government.

He went on: “I can completely understand how Scottish people would end up leaning towards the SNP, particularly at this current moment in time stage.

“Sturgeon appears to be offering just a much more coherent and mature leadership style.”

But the comedian has pleaded with Scots not to leave the Union just yet.

He said: “I think it was in 2016 I was opening my Edinburgh show by saying, 'I'm very sympathetic to the cause of Scottish independence but as a spokesperson for the English left I would say please don't leave us with these c****'.

“That was begging the SNP voters in my audiences to not leave us quite yet with the Tories.”

Despite the plea, Kumar said as an Englishman on the left of the political spectrum he’s often found himself in alignment with the SNP.

And he said the high levels of dislike for Johnson in Scotland were spreading to other nations in the UK.

He said: “I'm at the Comedy Festival in Machynlleth. And the kind of groundswell for Welsh independence is starting to grow.

“And again, it's actually to do with the fact that Johnson and the Tory party have shown nothing but open contempt for these other countries, and then seem sort of almost mortally offended that they would not want to be aligned with them.

READ MORE: Wheatus: Boris Johnson is worse than a Teenage Dirtbag, and we back independence!

“I do feel sorry for a lot of people in different countries because it must be weird to find out … people in Scotland who are against independence, for them to see the contempt with which they are held by the Westminster Government that they are actively trying to remain a part of.”

His rejection of the Tories goes far beyond Nadine Dorries and Scotland though.

He said: “I just think that the Tory party, at the moment, is a delivery system for tax cuts for millionaires and racism, and it has nothing else really to offer.

"Actually, that's me being unfair, they also offer quite a lot of misogyny and homophobia - I'm actually being unfair to them. I'm not covering the full gamut of their policy platform.

"But it is hard to see what this government is actually actively doing to help the citizens at a really difficult time in our country's history with the cost of living crisis, on top of just coming out of a couple of years of an unprecedented global pandemic.

"It's just very difficult to see so obviously if people feel more closely aligned with leaders like Nicola Sturgeon, it makes total sense that that has happened."

Kumar will perform at Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre this Wednesday.