By Maxwell Elliff
NANETTE:
HANNAH GADSBY’S TRIUMPHANT CURTAIN CALL?
Hannah muses how in small towns when clocked at a distance she is often mistaken for a ‘good bloke’.
THE NAME ‘HANNAH GADSBY’ MIGHT NOT IMMEDIATELY RING A BELL FOR EVERYONE, BUT I WOULD WAGER THAT UPON SEEING A PHOTO OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMEDIAN, YOU WOULD LIKELY RESPOND WITH SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF, ‘AH… THAT FUNNY LESBIAN’. With her distinctive nerdish glasses, boyishly short brown hair and signature attire (reminiscent perhaps of a young, albeit fuller-framed, Stephen Hawking), the lady is hard to miss. For anyone who has caught a glimpse of her comedic chops, she anything but fades into the background. Having made a reputable name for herself over the past decade on the Australian comedy scene (including regular appearances on Good News Week, Spicks and Specks and Josh Thomas’ semi-biographical dramedy Please Like Me), not to mention doing the rounds on the international festival circuit, Gadsby’s off-kilter, aloof and oftentimes self-deprecating brand of humour rarely fails to provoke and delight. Yet there has always been a sense, for me anyway, that there must be more to Hannah Gadsby than meets the eye. Through her one-hour Netflix special Nanette, Gadsby confirmed my suspicions… and what ensued was nothing short of storytelling brilliance. In Nanette, which debuted as a live stand-up show in 2017 but reached a global audience this year via the juggernaut streaming service, Gadsby yanks back the curtain on her own identity and humanity while simultaneously deconstructing the nature of comedy and the role of the comedian. FUSEFEATURE
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