Gender Agenda

This comedy special consists of 8 stand-up routines from a diverse array of LGBTQ+ performers, from both the UK and the US. Most of them were excellent, though a couple fell a bit short with their material. But even those ones had strong deliveries that bode well for their future performances.

With 8 performers with a related background and a unifying theme I would have expected there would be more overlap in their content, but each one was surprisingly fresh. There's quite a bit of range in their approach to gender, with some laughing an their own personal experiences while others deftly made a mockery of social media and political attacks against the community.

I'm definitely looking forward to more content from these comedians.

Honestly, i'm not surprised. I've been a fan of Hannah Gadsby's for quite a number of years, so her assembling a cast that she as a master of her craft thinks is worth giving a go... yeah, definitely worth my time.

Each comedian has about 10 minutes. Deliver that first joke/theme, expand on it, a couple of twists and sly asides, and then put a bow on it.

Each has distinctive style and much like going to any of my local comedy clubs, that is part of the joy. Is every performer and every joke going to land for me? No. But this show hit well through its tight 75 minutes.

For me the highlights, in addition to Gadsby, were DeAnne Smith, Chloe Petts, and Dahlia Belle.

A handful of unknown, completely and totally unfunny miscreants talking for 90 minutes.

I say "talking" because they aren't telling jokes. They are just jammering. I swear Netflix must have stacked the audience with these clowns' friends and even then included a Laugh and Applause blinking light.

Or maybe they just added the sound effects because it's seriously very hard to imagine any normal person laughing at these non-jokes or finding any of it even remotely humorous.

This has to be the worst stand up "special" I have ever seen in my entire life. I was totally bored and horrified that someone actually put money behind this.

I enjoyed it, laughed out loud and really enjoyed seeing Hannah relaxed and in her/ his/ their element. She sounded like she might have been sick and getting worse through the evening but she hung in like a trooper. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I'm an ally and some of the jokes went over my head but it was really fun. It think it's great to showcase all kinds of talent, pribsbly better than during down ones you don't agree with, especially in comedy which purposefully pushes boundaries. I think Dave Chappelle is interesting and insightful, even if I don't always agree with him. And I'd rather the lgbtq+ community also have a platform too.

As with any showcase introducing a number of comedians that were largely unknown, there were hits and misses. Overall, though, I enjoyed it. As others have pointed out, there appeared to be some enhancement of the audience reaction, which seems a bit odd. Perhaps the audience was not advised that it was a recorded performance, or perhaps the venue was not a great fit - you'd expect that loyal local fans of the comics on display would make every effort to attend and be naturally enthusiastic. At any rate, that didn't really impact my reaction to the show. Since this special prompted a batch of hate-downvoting (which seems to be more and more common these days) I looked at a few of those reviewers and found that all or nearly all of their reviews were 1/10. They must be really poor at selecting what movies/specials they decide to invest their time in watching if they continually sit through performances they hate.