In Hannah Gadsby’s latest comedy show, Happiness Is A Bedside Table, she strips herself bare. Almost literally.
As well as reliving the formative humiliating episodes of her life in every sympathy-inspiring detail, she ends her show by symbolically stripping to her full-length swimsuit in a matter-of-fact striptease.
It’s the body of the 35-year-old Tasmanian that is most up for discussion during this charming show with the performer one of her own harshest critics; comparing her ample thighs while swimming to “ham hocks” that would make a family meal for sharks.
In fact, it is only her fans, who recognise her by her thighs and ask whether they are real; or seven-year-old relatives who tell her her head is too small for her body, who sound crueller.
From wetting the bed as an adult, being fed worming chocolate by a heartless ex-partner or almost dying while swimming naked, Gadsby turns personal humiliation into personal triumph.
This is far from a misery tour of self-loathing, with Gadsby’s laidback style making it feel more like catching up with an old friend.
An hour in her company flies by making her, if maybe not quite the Great Gadsby, then pretty fine entertainment all the same.
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