The great Gadsby makes America grate again

“I had no plans to make it in America. This was not on my agenda,” declares Hannah Gadsby. And yet she has. The 42-year-old Australian comedian became an overnight hit in the US when her first comedy special, Nanette, landed in 2017.

“It was a particular kind of show, of a very particular flavour,” Gadsby warns in the opening of her new show Douglas, referring to the fact that Nanette had delved so deeply into her own personal trauma. “If it’s more trauma [you’ve come for], I am fresh out,” she declares.

Of course she is not. Gadsby has another truckload of trauma to share, as she pokes ever more forcefully at her own experiences and the framework of comedy itself. Having named Nanette after a woman whose narrative, ultimately, did not appear in the show itself, Gadsby plays with naming conventions by christening this show Douglas, after her dog.

The brilliance of Gadsby’s work is not that it’s funny, it is very funny. And not even that it is inventive, for there are many comedians who mine their own emotional palette to paint with great artistry while on the stage. The brilliance of Gadsby’s work is that she challenges the audience to unpack their own prejudices.

In Nanette, Gadsby explored the power comedy has in marginalising others. The framework of that show – that she was de-constructing the process of being a comedian on the way to actually giving up the career – was very effective.

Douglas, in contrast, is something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, where she seems to declare a truce but then quietly, carefully ratchets up the pressure on the audience. And like much of Gadsby’s work, Douglas feels beautifully authentic.

It is a proper follow-up to Nanette in the sense that Gadsby begins in the past, and deals with both the first show’s success and its detractors. In that way she is storming the stage to simultaneously acknowledge the status quo and take back her power.

It is true some people struggled with Gadsby’s serious tone in Nanette, a show which absolutely exploded the idea that stand-up comedy must be “funny ha-ha” and not emotionally authentic. But any suggestion Douglas is a peace offering is quickly put to the sword. This is razor sharp, perhaps more so, as Gadsby’s stage presence matures and she unleashes the full range of her powers.

Stand-up comedy, despite the breadth of those preaching from its pulpit, can be somewhat institutionally formulaic. Gadsby breaks that formula, both in the way she de-constructs her own performance while she’s in the middle of it, and also in the performance itself, which ambitiously steps over obvious jokey hotspots for topics and issues that are genuinely provocative.

Your stock-in-trade comedian plays with cultural foibles. Gadsby goes straight for the jugular by tackling the stupidity of anti-vaxxers and her frustration with the fact that our social interfaces were authored by white, straight men.

In acknowledging she’s yet to find an audience who know how to laugh consistently at an anti-vaxxer joke, Gadsby’s exposition flies closest to revealing how and why her meta-comedy works so well. The laughs aren’t easy, nor do they serve as relief valves in the way they might conventionally have done in the past.

Instead, this is an uneasy dance between artist and audience. It’s challenging. It is funny, and truly hilarious at times. But it’s also going to kick you in the guts when you least expect it, and leave you foundering, somewhere between wanting to laugh and realising that the puppet-master is pulling your strings.

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
Netflix, on demand