“Ahh, I love the smell of squirming,” declares Catherine Deveny after throwing a particularly spiky remark out at the audience.

Ms. Deveny is not one to shy away from controversy. Her show God is Bullshit, resurrected from last year’s Comedy Festival by popular demand, serves up the acerbic directness that has become her currency.

This is a woman who was once told by Cardinal George Pell, in front of thousands of people, that she is a lost soul, to which she promptly swung around to onlookers and screeched, “I’m going to hell, who’s going with me!” And was then promptly escorted away by security.

Yet Deveny admits she was once a Catholic, becoming an atheist only after she tried to explain to her children the merits of religion, the bible and the aim of securing a place on the guest-list to “God’s big house party in the sky.” It was when she couldn’t find the answers to the questions her boys were asking, that she decided to seriously question religion herself.

A commanding stage presence- standing firmly in the centre of the stage, resplendent in velvet frock, Deveny frequently thrusts her arms out to either side like the enraptured evangelists she condemns and dispels popular myths about atheists: “Atheists aren’t arrogant – we’re smug.” Help prove your smugness by receiving a certified ATHEIST stamp from Deveny herself on the way out.

We need people like Catherine Deveny to make us laugh, make us squirm and to pique conversations that only happen when people start to ask questions.