Hannah Gadsby: Nanette

A wonderful show about comedy and about jokes. But it is not comedy and it is not jokes. And that's not an insult! It's a beautiful and moving performance but we should take it for what it is and appreciate that Ms Gadsby is doing her OWN, more difficult to categorize thing. Putting her in the same category as, I dunno, Ali Wong, is a disservice for them both.

It's fascinating how almost everyone here gives this 1 star or 10 stars, but in a way it makes sense. This is billed as a comedy special, but it goes far afield of that, which means if you don't want to follow when she veers from comedy then you'll hate it (likewise if you don't find the comedy parts funny), but it also means if you admire things that break all the rules and try to find a new way to tell stories then you're likely to be thrilled. Although I can't help but suspect there's also an element of politics in which some people are rating one star because they're offended by who she is and other people giving it 10 stars because they love who she is, with neither of these groups actually considering how this works as a piece of theater. Which, from my point of view, is quite well but not perfectly.

For maybe half the show it's a very funny stand-up routine. I've never seen Gadsby before, but she's sharp and clever and genial and very good at what she does.

But she's also questioning what she does, and begins to explore the ways in which comedy, in going for the laugh, can hide or distort the truth. It's not funny, but it is fascinating, and the way she tells you the story as joke in the first half then revisits the full truth of it in the second is rather amazing.

But she goes beyond both comedy and deconstructing comedy. She gets into the experience of being the "other," she gets into her considerable anger, and then explains why she doesn't really want to just appeal to anger, and she makes some fascinating points about art and the way we mythologize artists.

At times I thought it was a little slow. At times the seriousness wore on me. But it's brilliantly structured and she's an incredibly smart and insightful woman. And she can be both very funny and searingly, powerfully emotional.

In the special she says she's considering giving up stand-up. If she does, I'll be very eager to see what she replaces it with. She has a lot to say.

This is well worth seeing, but if you just want to see someone telling jokes for an hour, you might want to skip this. Cause it sure ain't that!

I had never heard of Hannah Gadsby before so this was a pretty random choice. A happy choice.

I'll give you some context: I have a fairly busy life, with two children under five, a job and a half, a boyfriend and a divorce in progress. I had not had a night alone in a long time, and, let me tell you: I was excited about MY time alone in MY house. Hannah was the perfect date for the occasion.

I also identify with "tired". Other than that I am an heterosexual white woman in her prime. This should be irrelevant but reading the other comments seems necessary to mention, because NO, this content does not appeal only to a particular community as some want you to believe. I am a woman, but the male attention I received throughout life, being heterosexual, feminine, said attractive, was quite different from Hannah's experience. One experience does not invalidate the other.

This content is about connection and Hannah makes us feel connected.

There is a less colorful community in which Hannah and I are together. I'm also a funny person, and I've been using humor all my life to deal with my frailties. It's something that has been in my mind lately, the need to be vulnerable to create real connections, something I struggle to achieve, I'm still working on it sitting in my world protected with walls of jokes that I'm not yet ready to knock over. and so I bow before Hannah Gadsby because, wow, this was bold and brave and we, from this other community, needed it. Thank you Hannah.

Imagine you go to a restaurant to eat out and instead of bringing you food the waitress comes out and tells you she was raped and hates men. It's interesting but it's not really what you were looking for. This is not comedic stand up, it's a one person show. If it was marketed that way it would be fine. If you are going to see a one person show then you know you are in for watching a self involved person baring their pain and resulting skewed hate that they rebrand as moral philosophy, and you can mentally prepare for that, and it's interesting because it's people watching at its best. But if you're expecting comedy and you get this, it's a bummer and annoying. So my review is it's a bummer and annoying.

This is the strongest anti-comedy show I have ever seen! I did not expect to go through this kind of range of emotions. What an incredible performance by Hannah Gadsby!