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Hannah Gadsby is bewildered. “Success has effectively scrambled my brain,” they say, letting out a heady giggle for just a fragment of a second. “The bigger you get, the more melted your brain gets… you can’t actually comprehend it.” It’s understandable – few comedians ever get the kind of traction that their breakthrough special Nanette did in 2018. The Emmy and Peabody-winning show that was filmed for Netflix was a pointed deconstruction of stand-up comedy as an art form, a relatively laugh-light exploration of trauma and marginalisation framed around Gadsby’s impending retirement from comedy. Such was Nanette’s success that this retirement never manifested.
