The (Non) Thinking Person's Comedian

What does Denise Scott have to regret? I mean, come on, she has a lengthy career as one of Australia's most respected and loved stand-up comedians, and now she's branching out into other creative spheres with the publication of a couple of books (her most recent memoir, The Tour, is now available wherever good books are still sold) and a regular role on the Seven series, Winners & Losers (“Ooh la la, an actress!” is how she describes herself these days). Heck, she's even asked to talk about the burning topics of the day on that TV show, Can Of Worms, which is where we caught up with her. “I'm getting ready to go talk about whether heterosexual parents are better than gay ones,” she laughs. “They're certainly asking the big questions. The last time I was on it was to talk about euthanasia! What do they want from me? I'm a non-thinking comedian!”

Oh, hardly. Scott clearly has a lot on her mind, even if it is misgivings about what happened – and what didn't happen – in her past. That's the basis of her stand-up show, Regrets, which has earned awards and entertained punters both here and abroad (after staging it at last year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, she took it to Edinburgh), and can be seen from Thursday 8 November at The Comedy Store.

But again the question must be raised: What does Denise Scott have to regret? Surely not that much. “Look, I do exaggerate some of them,” she admits. “I don't really regret that scrunch perm I had all that much. But it does provide a good few minutes of merriment. Regrets is about an event that didn't happen when I was sixteen, when I didn't shag this fellow named Robbie Buckle. And for a long time I did regret it, and in the show I talk about why, forty years later, in quite bizarre circumstances, he came back into my life at a chook meet where I was performing stand-up comedy. I think it was a great moment of synchronicity in life, and the outcome of that night was quite interesting. But the big question is: did I still regret it by the end of that night?”

Okay, one spoiler must be dropped here – nothing romantic occurred between Scott and this Buckle bloke at the chook meet. And she says that after the evening she found herself harbouring even more regrets. “But then there was a Facebook incident that led to closure. Does that sound at all intriguing or does it just sound like I haven't slept for a few days?”

Let's go with intriguing. But not quite as intriguing as the idea of a chook meet. What exactly is that? “I always assume people know!” she laughs. “It's like a rodeo for chooks, a bit like a Royal Show presentation of chooks, you know, with judges and all that. But what makes this one even more extraordinary was that these weren't real chooks – they were knitted. It was in 2009, it was after the Black Saturday bushfires, and as part of the healing process women had been gathering in groups and knitting these chooks. It was actually a very powerful process, and the community eventually decided to hold a chook meet to raise people's spirits and morale and they had me come perform stand-up at the event. Which was really tough! It was a humbling experience for me – the whole thing really made you weep because this audience were in the throes of profound grief. Long story short – Robbie Buckle saved the day. And it reminded me that sometimes life dishes out something quite remarkable.”