Trans comedian Jordan Gray says she wants to put “sadness on the shelf” with her new comedy Transaction.

The 36-year-old performer tells PinkNews that she hopes the irreverent ITV sitcom helps to show that trans people can be “d**kheads” without it reflecting on the entire community.

Written and starring Jordan, Transaction sees a reclusive trans woman, Liv, join a misfit supermarket night shift team, initially as a diversity hire to help dissuade backlash from a poorly-thought advert.

What ensues is a camp, hyperbolic six-part comedy sitcom, which Jordan says is a heartfelt as it is unapologetically profane.

“I’m just a d**khead that happens to be transgender. I just am. I’m playing an idiot in it,” she says of her role in the series. “I’m playing a bit of a cartoon.”

“I started writing the first little version of it seven years ago, but its been a good five years in development,” she says. “It’s weird because you get really good as a working-class comedian getting used to the suffering and the hard work. Now it’s coming out, there’s nothing to suffer for.”

Since her notorious notorious performance on Channel 4’s Friday Night Live in 2022, where the comedian stripped naked, Jordan says she has had to face new elements of her comedy career – namely, dealing with the fame of it all.

Not content with just landing a primetime TV comedy, the Jordan has also been working on her latest live performance, “Is That A C*ck in your Pocket, or are you Just Here to Kill Me?”, which will open at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 30 July.

“The show is called that because it sort of touches on the death threats that I’ve received after appearing naked on television. I feel like everything I’m doing at the moment is inescapably tied back to me being in the public eyes.”

This new level of fame hasn’t stopped her from remembering her one golden rule with comedy – make people laugh.

“When you start, you don’t have to worry about [fame]. You know, the first show was allowed to be about, like, dogs and Batman and bread. Now I can’t help but touch on stuff. Your job as a comedian nowadays is don’t forget to be funny, which is hard.”

‘If Trump can be a cartoon, so can I’

This was one of the sources of inspiration for Transaction. Jordan says she wanted the show to be a laugh for anyone and everyone despite being about a trans woman living in the UK, which so often comes with baggage.

“I do think that playing a cartoon – there’s a little bit of Jack Sparrow or Minnie Mouse [in Liv], mainly because of her haircut – playing a cartoon allows you to put your sadness on the shelf a little bit and do something funny, because she is a funny character. I’m really proud of her. She’s the protagonist, but she’s not the hero of the story.

“It’s nice to play a cartoon. Everything’s cartoony at the moment. I mean, if Trump can be a cartoon, I can be a cartoon,” she jokes.

While Liv’s experiences touch upon the frustations, elations, and considerations of being a trans woman in the UK, Jordan says her irreverence and self-described vulgarity shouldn’t be seen as a representation for all trans people.

“Anthony Hopkins played a cannibal in Silence of the Lambs. He’s a proud Welsh man. At no point did anyone say, ‘oh, look at Anthony Hopkins suggesting that all Welsh people are cannibals’,” she explains. “I’m just a trans woman who’s playing a d**khead. I’m allowed to do that because she’s just character.

“We get very upset, and rightly so, when we have bigots who group us and point at one terrible example and say, look that’s all of us. I just hope we don’t do that to ourselves as well.”

To that end, Jordan explains that she wrote the supporting characters to be similarly socially-maladjusted “d**kheads” too, but in a way that helps to uplift the cartoonishness of the show.

“The show is obviously in support of the trans community. Some of the characters are supportive, others aren’t,” she explains. “All the other characters in the show are not well-adjusted people, but it plays by different rules because it knows it’s a sitcom. The show that knows its a show.”

‘She’s a d**khead, but at the core she wants to be part of a group’

Among the supporting cast is Thomas Gray, who plays Liv’s lovably awkward roommate and dear friend, Tom, as well as supermarket staff members Millie (Francesca Mills), Beefy Linda (Kayla Meikle), and many more.

Nick Frost also joins the cast as the out-of-touch, yet sincere store manager, Simon. Jordan commended Nick’s work, saying he was the “reason the show is happening.”

“His company extracted it from its original place, funded it, developed it,” she says. “He said if it ever gets made for TV, I want to play the boss.”

Frost recently found himself facing backlash after joining the cast of the upcoming Harry Potter HBO TV series. The Shaun of the Dead actor later clarified his views did not “align” with those of series author JK Rowling.

Working with Frost during the production of Transaction, Jordan describes him as “a proper sweetheart.”

“He’s amazing. He plays a character. You have to be such a good actor to play an idiot. He plays a boss that’s just trying to get it right but doesn’t know how. To play a character that is getting it wrong, you have to be so smart to be able to convince the other actors you’re getting it wrong.

“He’s not only the reason that it’s all happening. He’s one of my favourite bits of the show,” she explains. “Most right-minded people, forward-thinking people in the world are just nice people. They just support everyone. He is one of those people.”

Overall, Jordan says the main goal of Transaction is to show how family can be anywhere, even in the places you least expect it like a supermarket night shift.

“Liv and Simon’s relationship as the series goes on is one of the loveliest things to see. They are both getting it a little but wrong, you know, she’s taking full advantage of that situation. By the end, they’re a family. She just wants a family.

“She’s a d**khead, but at the core she just wants to be part of a group of people, because when you’re transgender, you know, you get put on such a pedestal. It’s lonely. She’s desperate to connect but doesn’t want to admit it.”

Transaction is available on ITVX and on ITV2 from Tuesday 24 June. Jordan Gray: Is That a C*ck in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Here to Kill Me? Assembly George Square Gardens, Edinburgh, 30 July-24 August.

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