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About
Hannah Gadsby is an Australian comedian, writer, actor and television presenter. She rose to prominence after winning the national final of the Raw Comedy competition for new comedians in 2006 and since toured internationally as well as on television and radio.
In 2018, the release by Netflix of a film version of Gadsby's stand-up show, Nanette, expanded her international audience.
Starting in 2019, she is touring the US and Australia with her new show Douglas.
Early life and education
Gadsby was born and grew up in Smithton, a small town on the remote north-west coast of Tasmania, the youngest of five children.
She attended Smithton High School from 1990 to 1995, then moved to Launceston College in year 12, where she suffered a nervous breakdown.
She began tertiary studies at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, but moved to the mainland to attend the Australian National University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Curatorship in 2003.
After this she worked in bookshops in Canberra and became a projectionist at an outdoor cinema in Darwin for a while. She then spent two years picking vegetables and planting trees along the east coast of Australia, before she found herself homeless (which she later attributed partly to her ADHD) and ill enough to require hospitalisation.
Career
Stand-up
Further information: Live shows below
It was on a visit to her sister in Adelaide in 2006 when Gadsby entered Raw Comedy in 2006, progressing through the heats to win the national prize. As the winner, she was sent to the So You Think You're Funny competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where she won second prize. From that point on, she performed numerous stand-up shows at festivals around Australia, such as the Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Sydney Comedy Festival.
Gadsby created the stand-up show she named Nanette partly as a response to the uncivil public debate which took place in Australia before the law was changed to allow same-sex marriage, and also after her diagnosis of ADHD and autism, in a performance described as ground-breaking. In 2018, Netflix released the film version of Nanette, which brought her to the attention of international audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, Nanette received an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 46 critics and a 25% approval rating based on +1200 audience reviews.
In March 2019 Gadsby previewed her new show, Douglas, in Adelaide, before touring the US and Australia, where many shows were sold out in advance. In the show, she explores new personal revelations "with empathy, wit and some extremely relatable metaphor", and creates something "bigger than comedy" according to one reviewer of the preview show. Gadsby says that she doesn't care what people call the show, aiming at men who complained on social media that Nanette was "not comedy but a lecture". In May 2019, Gadsby announced that Douglas will be released on Netflix in 2020.
TV roles
Further information: Filmography below
Gadsby co-wrote and co-starred in the Australian ABC television TV show Adam Hills Tonight through three seasons from February 2011 to July 2013. She had regular segments called 'On This Day' and 'Hannah Has A Go' and also featured on the couch, contributing as host Adam Hills interviewed his guests.
She co-wrote (with Matthew Bate) and presented a three-part series on ABC TV, Hannah Gadsby's Oz, which aired in March 2014. Produced by Closer Productions, this series set out to "debunk the myths of the Australian identity perpetuated by national art".
She co-wrote 20 episodes of fellow comedian Josh Thomas's series Please Like Me (2014-2016) and featured as Hannah, a fictional version of herself.
Guest appearances
Gadsby has appeared as a guest on numerous TV shows in Australia and elsewhere, including Rove Live (2009), Good News Week (2009), Spicks and Specks (2010), Agony (2012-2014), QI (2018), The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2018), and New Zealand TV 3's game show, 7 Days. She was a presenter at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2018, presenting the award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.
Gadsby was also a guest on Conan O'Brien's podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend in 2019.
Art-related tours and shows
Between 2009 and 2013, Gadsby presented comedy art tours in conjunction with the National Gallery of Victoria, with themes such as paintings of the Holy Virgin, Dadaism, Modernism, Impressionism and the nude in art. She has given talks on art and opened exhibitions.
Gadsby has written and presented two documentary specials for the Artscape program on ABC TV: Hannah Gadsby Goes Domestic (2010) and The NGV Story (2011.)
Hannah Gadsby's Oz (see above) was art-related.
In 2015 she wrote and performed Hannah Gadsby: Arts Clown, a series for BBC Radio 4 based on her comedy art shows.
Personal life
Gadsby is openly lesbian and often refers to her sexuality in her stand-up routines.
She was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in 2017. She refers to her autism in her 2019 show Douglas in a way aimed to help people understand neurodiversity as part of a normal variation of the human condition.
Gadsby is an active supporter of various charities. Organisations she has assisted include Big Brothers Big Sisters of Melbourne, Edmund Rice Camps of Victoria and the Sacred Heart Mission. She has twice performed in The Breast Darn Show in Town.