Hannah Gadsby: Something Special

I enjoyed Nanette and Douglas, so I was quite easy to win over. However I can find (understandably) that comedians with one or two strong specials can struggle to live up to their previous work, or delivery more of the same. With all of Gadsby's specials I have found they have their own unique tone and message.

I enjoyed the celebration of a relationship from start to present. I write about love in my own work and worry I come off as overly sentimental and boring so I found something special to be a lesson in how to talk about your partner in a way that people can relate to.

I also always get a lot from Gadsby's observations about being autistic, and that they explain their experiences in a way anyone can relate to.

Is it funny? Yes, I laughed a lot and find the special has re-watch value. Will you find it funny? I don't know but you will enjoy the performance and story.

This is now the third special from Hannah Gadsby, and one I love as much as the two earlier ones. While Nanette broke my heart, Douglas was just pure joy of connecting with a fellow autistic mind, and no we have Something Special, which, indeed, is something special.

Hannah has the ability to build her comedy on laughing at her own peculiarities all the while being just the charming witty person she is. She tells the story of proposing her now wife, Jenno, and turns the story into a heart-warming comedy show without insulting anyone, without laughing at less-fortunare people, and without being problematic. And, this is pure perfection.

Also very relatable for someone like me, autistic and queer.

From the outset I'll make it clear that I'm not a big stand up fan but my wife really likes Hannah Gadsby's offerings so I agreed to give it a try. It was far from 'Something Special', literally didn't even grin once but I guess I'm not her target audience. My wife wasn't laughing either for most of it, she did have the odd snigger here and there and I asked her if she thought ti was good, her reply was 'it's okay, not her best work'.

I think some comics miss the boat a little by appealing to a very narrow fan base, super narrow in Gadsby's case, she pretty much had me thinking 'I don't think she likes me even though we've never met' within 10 minutes.

I "got" Nanette and I really enjoyed "Douglas" but I don't know what the hell this was suppose to be. Yay, she got married, completely happy for her on that. I'm happy for her wife as well. That's wonderful. But the rest of it didn't land anywhere near humorous for me. I found it repetitive, morbid, and banal at best. She sounds liked she was trying way too hard for this special; the previous two felt quite organic and true to herself. This felt like a pop star was making an album to meet a record company contract and the only important thing was to fulfill that contract. I maybe snickered once. Ok, it was a chuckle but the rest of it was dismal. So disappointing.

Hannah Gadsby returns with a third Netflix special that starts good and ends great. While her first special is best remembered for being a serious affair, and her second increased the quantity of jokes (Gadsby herself acknowledged she'd unpacked most of her trauma in her first big special), with Something Special, I feel like Gadsby just revolutionised "my wife" comedy (which itself is a generally tired type of standup that I tend not to like).

To elaborate, it's a pet peeve of mine when stand-up comedians rely too heavily on jokes about their wives (mostly men, but I've also seen female comedians who make much of their routine about partners), and that there seem to be increasingly fewer ways to make these jokes funny. They're not always inherently unfunny, but it's a type of joke you start to recognize (and get tired of) after watching a decent number of standup specials.

Here, Gadsby's show largely revolves around the last few (mostly positive) years of her life, particularly how she came to be married. Her jokes aren't at the expense of her partner; they're more just funny and endearing observations. The endearing part makes up for the fact that the material isn't always laugh-out-loud funny. It's a little more subdued, but it's consistent and doesn't often miss. It also builds up to an excellent ending that made me appreciate the special as a whole much more.

If there's one complaint, it's that things grind to a halt whenever Gadsby mentions "editing out" jokes that don't hit. I feel like comedians should take a failed joke in stride, lampshade its failure in a funny way, or actually edit it out and not let the imperfection show. I know I've seen other comedians lately do this kind of reference when something doesn't hit with the audience, and I think it's starting to hurt specials. It's confusing, because I remember her second special had some better meta-observations about the nature of standup, but here, they just feel like (very occasional) awkward bloopers.

But this is largely a very good special, and expertly subverts and puts a positive/wholesome spin on the tired "complain about my wife for an hour" style of standup special. From now on, anyone else who wants to base a comedy special primarily around their significant other has to make sure it's at least as good as this.