Hannah Gadsby is Wrong and Broken

This is gentle comedy without pretension - inoffensive and refreshingly honest

★★★

archive review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes

By Adam Knight

Published 15 Aug 2007

102793 original

As Hannah Gadsby makes her slightly startled entrance, the front row visibly relaxes as they realise that, contrary to what seems to be the stand-up audience member rule, the worst embarrassment you’ll get from sitting on the front row is stubbing your toe on the stage. Gadsby just radiates warmth, and her slightly geeky awkwardness means it’s difficult to hold back from jumping on stage and hugging her in the more poignant moments of the show.

Gadsby self-deprecatingly describes her show as her “glorified coming out story”: an over-simplification that simply does not do justice to this charming act. Using excerpts from a “novel” she wrote aged 8 as a structural framework, she recounts tales from her small-town Tasmanian upbringing. The parallels between her eight year-old and present selves make for some insightful and touching stories, and Gadsby’s talent for mimicking her characters brings occasional relief from her usually deadpan delivery.

This is gentle comedy without pretension – inoffensive and refreshingly honest. Surprisingly, her ability to bring a tear to the audience’s eyes only balances the comedy, helping to avoid the somewhat tiresome and desperate quest for laughter that many comedians descend into. While the show will not appeal to all as there are no moments of explosive hilarity here, the audience file out at the end of the show sharing a mesmerised grin.