Hannah Gadsby: Nanette

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!

It starts off a stand up special but takes a turn for the serious. Hannah is a strong and powerful woman, weaving the through comedy, women's issues, lgbqti issues and modern art. Don't expect to laugh the whole way through but you will walk away feeling feelings.

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!

I would have gladly given this a higher rating if was properly placed in the genre to which it belongs.

As a humanities lecture with some forgettable humor tossed in, it's outstanding. As a character study of a severely broken woman it's fascinating. As a standup comedy show it's a dismal failure. Her material includes competent but hardly memorable jokes that go on for way too long.. Her ramblings about men didn't offend me -do people think this is the first time our gender has heard any of this? It's hardly the groundbreaking work it pretends to be.

I've noticed some unfortunate things from reading the reviews on this, though. If you're only mildly entertained by dull, razor thin feminist baiting tripe you're some sort of incel. Women aren't above criticism, and if you're going to touch on this subject you don't get to call anyone who disagrees with you a misogynist and leave it that. It's too simplistic. And it takes away all accountability for your failure to entertain.

The message I took away from this was unfortunate - men want comedy (most of the top tier comedians are male), women want validation. And that's truly a sad, cynical attitude to walk away with. She makes a better public speaker preaching to the choir because, as a comedian, she does little to dispel the tired stereotype that women aren't funny.

Thank God for Kathleen Madigan.