Maybe Katie Hopkins’ audience is already fired up after fighting with the small group of protesters, holding signs and leaflets, outside the comedy club.

Or maybe after years of following her – in newspapers (before she was fired), on the radio (before her firing), on Twitter (before her ban) and, most recently, on YouTube – they are simply delighted to finally meet their heroine.

Anyway, when she went on stage at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green, east London, the crowd went crazy. Especially when she shouts: “These are difficult times, my loves. This country is on the verge of saying, “Enough,” but you are not alone! They clap and clap and shout, “We love you Katie!” »

Many are just happy to be here. Not least because other theaters canceled Hopkins’ solo shows after claiming she spread hatred, racism and fascist bile.

“It was canceled in King’s Lynn! Fools! She’s just trying to tell the truth,” says Julie, 62, from Bromley, Kent, sipping a giant white wine to my left. “Nothing is off limits.”

Malcolm – a nice, calm guy to my right – couldn’t agree more. “I like the way he sees things. The way she’s able to analyze all this madness and make sense of it,” he says. “Why are they protesting outside? She’s not racist, she’s just saying it for all of us. You should watch her on YouTube. She’s brilliant.

Former Apprentice candidate, media personality and commentator Katie Hopkins speaking during a debate against the motion: ‘This House would go vegan’ at Oxford Union

In 2020, Hopkins (pictured) was removed from Twitter for “violations of our hateful conduct policy”, although Elon Musk let her back when he bought the social media site.

It’s hard to imagine anyone not knowing Katie Hopkins, 49, but just in case her incessant efforts at self-publicity aren’t catching on with you, she’s the annoying blonde from the third series of The BBC TV Apprentice in 2007 – who bowed out before a final showdown with Lord Sugar, but then used the publicity to rebrand himself as a controversial hate figure.

Since then, after being fired from her job at the Met Office and photographed naked in a field having sex with another woman’s husband (who became hers), she has offended many people by making jokes in bad taste, such as about the death of TV presenter Kate. Garraway, Derek Draper, and insulting a nine-year-old autistic girl.

Sometimes it feels like Hopkins has made a list: immigrants, “robust lesbians,” the trans community, Pakistanis, people with physical disabilities – whom she often refers to on her show as “spazzes” – all the ugly or obese people. As she tells us at least twice: “I am the most forbidden woman in the world”. And she probably is. In 2018, she was arrested in South Africa for allegedly spreading racial hatred.

In 2020, she was removed from Twitter for “violations of our hateful conduct policy”, although Elon Musk let her back when he purchased the social media site.

And in 2021, she was deported from Australia – after deliberately breaking Covid lockdown rules.

She compared African migrants crossing the Mediterranean to cockroaches and called for gunboats to deal with them. And, after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, she called for the “final solution” – seen by many as a reference to the Holocaust.

Naturally, she appeared in court for defamation. After a Twitter row, she had to pay food writer Jack Monroe £131,000 in damages for causing “serious harm” to his reputation – and had to sell the family home in Devon. But that didn’t stop her. “It makes me freer to express myself. Now there is nothing left for them to take,” she said. On behalf of what she calls “the voiceless majority,” like-minded people who “just want to be honest and free to think whatever they want.”

Katie Hopkins gestures as she takes part in a debate at the Oxford Union in November last year

She now has her own YouTube channel where she shares her opinions with thousands of subscribers.

So she tells jokes about how “redhead babies are harder to love”, that Israel’s Mossad secret service is “totally epic”, as well as lots of unprintable things about Labor politicians, lesbians, ” climate assholes,” slavery, immigrants, and Angela Rayner. pubic hair.

And the crowd roars and bursts out laughing. They all follow her online and have traveled miles to be here. A woman flew from her home in Portugal.

“She’s our heroine,” says a shaven-headed guy in a Union Jack T-shirt. “She’s always perfect.”

But being a far-right political commentator was never supposed to be Hopkins’ path.

“Growing up in Devon, I wanted to be in the army. Fighting for my country,” she said. Thanks to the University of Exeter’s sponsorship of the Intelligence Corps, she signed on for 35 years. But she neglected to reveal that she suffered from epilepsy, meaning she often ended up in hospital.

During the parade in Sandhurst she had a seizure and was released.

She moved to a job in finance in New York. It was there that she stole her first husband, who abandoned her for his secretary the day after the birth of their second daughter.

Then she appeared on The Apprentice and, since then, has appeared on countless reality shows, written – and spoken – a lot of inflammatory words and upset an awful lot of people.

“I like to think that I am still serving my country. In a different way. I stand for Britain.

The crowd here loves it. Especially when she uses the F or C word, every 30 seconds or so. I can only relay a fraction of it because a lot of it is unprintable.

His speech is shocking, it’s a shame. Because, surprisingly, Hopkins has excellent comedic timing, a good rapport with her audience and – when she moves away from hatred – is very funny. She’s natural and warm — yes, really — when interacting with the audience and joking about the surgery that cured her epilepsy and a traumatic moment with a loofah in the shower.

Katie Hopkins pictured leaving Australia in 2021 after being deported for deliberately breaking Covid lockdown rules

But then, minutes later, the bile pours out with appalling comments about the Grenfell Tower fire – “sad, sad, burn, burn” – and insults against the former deputy postmaster in the campaign, Alan Bates.

Nobody comes out. No one says, “Too much!” » They laugh like sewers when she says she is a good friend of Tommy Robinson (the former leader of the English Defense League, currently in custody) and talks about her support for the man jailed for tracking down the broadcaster Jeremy Vine and counselor’s wife in prison for inciting racial hatred. the day three girls were killed in Southport.

God knows what motivates Hopkins. Maybe she really thinks she’s the messiah of the far right.

As the two-hour show draws to a close, her message accelerates as she tells us that we are “family” and that the government is “trying to kill us with a thousand cuts.” “No matter what happens, you’ll always have me.” You are not alone and we are stronger together.

And there is loud applause and a standing ovation.

Ahead of another show, management at the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe, Suffolk, refused to cancel it, despite protests, saying: “If people don’t like it, they don’t have to come.” So it’s up to you to decide.

But if jokes about Pakistanis, “Dead Derek” and those who burned to death aren’t your thing, I’d say don’t go there. Katie Hopkins doesn’t give a damn. Either way, every show will be sold out.