Comedienne Kate Smurthwaite is certainly outspoken.

Three years after going on TV and telling a devoutly religious audience they were idiots, she still gets emails at least once a week telling her she is going to burn in hell.

Not that she believes in hell, or heaven, which is what got her into such hot water.

The clip, called Atheist Bitchslap, has had 3.2 million views on YouTube.

It shows Kate’s appearance on the panel of the BBC1 Sunday morning show The Big Questions to discuss ‘does heaven exist?’.

A man in the audience said that heaven is real and that every aborted child is in heaven.

Kate replied by saying: “So we would be doing them a favour by aborting them then?”

But she really upset the audience by going on to say: “Faith is believing in things without evidence and I don’t do that because I’m not an idiot.”

Now she says: “It’s extraordinary how things go viral, but I stand by it, I’m glad I said it.”

Kate, who is coming to Birmingham which her stand-up show Leftie Cockwomble, describes herself as an aethist feminist left-wing comedian.

A spokesman for campaign group Abortion Rights UK, she is a writer for Have I Got News For You and the Bafta-winning The Revolution Will Be Televised, and was named as one of the 10 best things about this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

She appeared on Question Time in January alongside Ken Clarke and Lord Oakeshott. Since then the Lord has left the Lib Dems and Clarke has stepped down from the cabinet.

“I’m claiming credit for that,” laughs Kate. “I like to think of myself as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of Question Time.

“I got Ken Clarke bang to rights a few times, though actually Lord Oakeshott agreed with me on a few things and has since been to see my show.

“The name of my new stand-up show came from Question Time. “For a while, I was trending on Twitter. People who agreed with me had the nice hashtag #KateSmurthwaiteForPM, while the people who disagreed had the hashtag #LeftieCockwomble.

“I had no idea what cockwomble means. I’ve since been offered a few suggestions, and it’s obviously intended as an insult, but I love it.

“I talk about that in the show, about language and how something might be an insult but sounds nice, and how someone might try to give you a compliment that you hate.

“I think there are fewer political comedians now than in the 1980s when there were so many anti-Thatcher acts and political comedy was everywhere.

“But I think political comedy is coming back a bit – opposition to the Government’s austerity programme has seen a revival.”

* Kate Smurthwaite plays Cherry Reds in John Bright Street at 4.45pm on October 5 as part of the Comedy Festival All Dayer. For tickets ring 0844 870 0000 or go to www.bhamcomfest.co.uk