Hannah Gadsby: Something Special

Call me old fashioned; but I generally like some comedy in my comedy specials. I honestly don't know what this even was, but it wasn't comedy.

I've seen a lot of criticism thrown Hannah's way, and I've never bothered to confirm whether or not it's justified, so I decided to watch Something Special.

The criticism is justified.

This wasn't so much much a comedy special as it was a long whinge; about how hard Hannah - and women in general.- have had it in life. At no point does she explain how or why she's oppressed. She just throws it out there and uses the victimhood as a way to solicit laughs - a task at which she fails massively. I didn't even manage a smile during this show. I just sat scratching my head, wondering why it is this woman's shows get such high ratings.

It's truly a mystery to me.

If this was described as "a person walking around on stage talking about boring mundane day-to-day things that are not funny" then I would laugh and be like "are you serious? I gotta watch this". But it was described as a "comedy special", so I watched this thinking that someone was going to tell jokes and I was going to laugh.

Not only did I not laugh, but the audience didn't laugh either. There is one joke about the color blue.... wow, it was like watching that one lady back in 2016 who said "wiped the hard drive? Like, with a cloth?", which is essentially when the word "cringe" was invented in pop culture. The entire audience of this special looked at each other with a weird look on their faces thinking "Is this funny? Am I supposed to laugh?"

I hope that analogy gives you an idea of what you can expect to feel when you watch this thing. It is beyond dry. And I don't mean dry like the Office, but dry like static cling in your laundry. You are going to get electrocuted when you stand up from your couch to turn off the tv.

How did this person manage to secure a Netflix special? I just don't get it. I highly doubt you will either.

Hannah jokes that we are owed a feel good show after previously making us laugh and cry - and the show delivers on this promise.

Like most good stand up - it felt short and left you wanting more. Like most good stand up - stories linked into other stories, and stories about telling stories were also a pleasure.

And that is just it - laugh or cry, Hannah tells stories, facts, truths in the type of way that makes us feel we could all be successful comics telling the nuances of our lives - but Hannah nails it.

You wont have your heart wrenched like Nanette - but you will be entertained and this is "something special"

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.

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.