It is on netflix. It is impressive piece of art. Don’t expect to laugh much.
Is this thread art? Because this seems like the opposite of a pitch to me.
“Watch this stand-up! It’s not funny!”
It is actually very funny, but it’s as much (extremely powerful) polemic and confessional as it is stand-up. It’s remarkable.
Well, it is a first stand-up I have watched that made me tear up and not from laughter - and I think there is quite a lot of value in that.
Now there are some good punchlines here and there, but really the strength of this particular show is elsewhere.
Steer clear of Patton Oswalt’s “Annihilation” special then.
Can you elaborate? I am not sure how I should understand your post.
Oswalt does a good portion of the end of his routine about the sudden death of his wife in 2016. It is one of the most astonishing bits of “standup” that I’ve ever heard, and it made me weep.
It was illegal to be gay in Tasmania until 1997???
It’s… overall, a bit too woke and Tasmanian for my tastes?
I’m definitely enjoying the meta-commentary on the limitations of using comedy to tell your own story, such that she is considering leaving the field. That’s unique, solid and heartfelt. All great comedians have demons; it’s a big part of what makes them good. What happens when you intentionally choose to turn away from the demon? That’s what is on offer here, and it is a unique take.
Ok, that does sound heavy. Steering me clear was meant sarcastically then I assume :)
The Oswalt special has been nominated for an Emmy award, so absolutely worth watching. Just be ready for more cry-laughing if you watch it. :)
I’d also recommend this special. Brilliant show. Better to watch it and be taken by surprise by it all so if you can handle something different then it’s a must watch
Nanette is indeed amazing to watch.
Oswalt’s special should also be a must watch. I haven’t seen the Netflix version yet but I saw him perform on that tour in Seattle. Incredible how he worked through his wife’s death so expertly.
Nanette is amazing as a performance. I’d not heard of Hannah Gadsby before, and for her first 30 minutes, she kind of exudes a charming, slightly befuddled, schoolmarmish sensibility. Her jokes are even a little tame–she delivers them with a bit of hesitancy, tentatively offering them to the audience and kind of having to nudge them into landing correctly a few times. Her face crinkles up with pleasure when the audience laughs. This is pure performance. It’s exactly the persona she’s trying to project, and she tells us this. When she “removes the mask”, the lines on her face smooth out, her gaze is more direct, her tone far more forceful, her jokes more hard-edged and funnier–she shows us confidence and power and the strength of her performance. She erases herself for 30 minutes and then re-writes herself for the last 40. It’s an amazing piece of work.
This whole performance is so well composed. Incredible.
And this is an amazing summary. Well said!
Edit: Goddamn, I just re-read what you wrote, and it got even better.
I liked it, especially the early, funny bits (Stardust Memories reference).
Stand-up is her forte. She’s not going to fill amphitheaters as a polemicist, which lends a disingenuous air to the later parts of her performance. I say this as someone who went to Karen Finley shows back in the day.
Me and my wife stumbled upon this the other day. An amazing hour. It starts as a very competent stand up act and then becomes something else.
Gadsby’s new special Douglas is out for streaming on Netflix. She’s not a one-off. It’s really funny and she’s in peak form. She totally eschews the schoolmarm act she affected during the first half of Nanette and just goes for the jugular the whole time. Such a gifted comedian and performer.
Douglas might not be epoch defining the way Nanette was, but goddamn is she good! She’s coming for the top spot in comedy, if she’s not already on par with John Mulaney.
When you read the post below this, you’ll find that not only is this the setup for a callback joke, but commentary on story structure is cool, cool, cool.
I really liked it, but I’m not sure the meta-introduction really added much. It had a touch of the Stewart Lee to it, which I would normally love, but it didn’t really serve the message as it usually does with him, or indeed her commentary on stand-up did in Nanette.