Until a short London run earlier this month, Josh Thomas had never performed in the UK. “I don’t think anyone thought I’d sell any tickets,” he says. “I didn’t think I would, either. The only metric I have to know how famous I am in different countries is my Grindr.” Wherever Thomas logs in from, he can assess his local popularity from the proportion of users who recognise him. “And in the UK, those numbers are low, which is not a good sign.”
The 37-year-old Aussie comic’s anxieties were misplaced. We are meeting mid-morning at the Underbelly Boulevard, a new 200-capacity venue in the heart of Soho, central London. The previous night, in the same venue, Thomas performed his latest standup show, Let’s Tidy Up, to a sold-out auditorium: a tight 75 minutes that balances intimate anecdotes with occasional absurdity, plus an added dance break.
Extra UK dates have been added, ahead of a month-long stint at the Edinburgh festival fringe. Now he is sitting across from me, all long, flailing limbs and trademark floppy hair. There is a playful bashfulness to Thomas, on stage and off; softly spoken yet sharp, at times – and all barbs carefully calculated. “Do you like my outfit?” he asks. “I couldn’t tell if I looked disgusting.” He feigns embarrassment when asked where the ensemble is from. “I don’t want you to print it … fine, you can. It’s Gucci, Armani, ’Mani, Gucci,” he offers, neatly pointing to burgundy loafers, patched jeans, a lime-green shirt and checked blazer in turn.
It’s not only UK audiences who have missed out on Thomas’s stage shows. For most of his 30s, he refused to perform live. “I quit standup for six, eight years,” he says, “but quietly – I didn’t tell anyone. Not like Hannah [Gadsby]: I didn’t make a big fuss and do a whole tour about it.” A friendly jab at an old friend.
Why the hiatus? “You know how Simone Biles had the twisties and pulled out of the Olympics? I had the standup comedy equivalent. I would walk out, people would clap, and I’d feel repulsed: disgusted they came; sickened I was there.” Watching a Joan Rivers documentary cemented things. “She’s so old in it, schlepping around, trying to figure out her next gig. Worried every night she was going to flop. God, I thought: I can’t do this for 60 more years. Have you met those comedians who’ve been doing it for decades without a break? They’re awful to be around.”
Much more comfortable was making television. First, in the 2010s, four seasons of his smash-hit, Emmy-nominated and critically acclaimed Aussie sitcom Please Like Me: a deeply moving, brutally funny coming-of-age-and-coming-out story. Gadsby played a leading role. His follow-up, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, in which a twentysomething neurodiverse Australian protagonist in LA navigates identity and belonging, was produced by a US network and premiered in 2020.
Only in October last year did Thomas return to the stage. “You get older and think: actually it’s quite nice to do shows. Not disgusting, but cute. I was being such a little bitch about it before, basically.” He’s avoiding mixed bills, sticking to solo shows. “I refuse. I don’t want to have to make eye contact with comedians as they come off stage. I will not see their transition from on-stage to off-stage energy – it’s depressing. Plus, trying to win an audience over feels like high school, and isn’t fun for me. So I do my little shows for people just like me. You know, soft people.”His approach to writing material hasn’t changed. “Since I started, I’ve only talked about myself.” This show, like those before, is all skilful storytelling and self-reflection. What starts with his unique handling of a now ex-partner’s marriage proposal (it led to a breakup and cross-continental move) ends with the death of a small furry animal.
“Honestly, I don’t know about anything else. I find it boring when comedians speak about anything but themselves. Take Ricky Gervais or Dave Chappelle talking about trans people. Why do they think they’re experts? They’re idiots about it. Why watch someone who has no fucking idea talk about a topic? It’s not edgy, just dull.”
In Let’s Tidy Up, that’s precisely what Thomas does. The show centres on his autism diagnosis two years ago, seven years after being diagnosed with ADHD. “Part of the attraction of an adult autism diagnosis,” he says, “is that people hear the label and understand why things are a bit different. Like, if my house is untidy you may think that’s because I’m lazy, which is different to thinking it’s a mess because I don’t have the brain wiring to solve that problem. It’s autism – not me falling apart.” It applies to social situations, too. “Now if I’ve been insensitive in a conversation and the person I’m talking to knows I’m autistic, they’ll likely react better.” It’s these intricacies the show explores.
On this tour, at least, he’s finding the diagnosis is affecting dynamics. “Audiences are watching me differently,” Thomas says. He likes it that way. “Before, I’d put more effort into justifying things: getting bits wrong, or saying something random or weird. Now people acknowledge the ADHD and autism logic, whereas previously I’d have needed to bring them along. I get licence to be more authentic to my thought processes. Sometimes it goes the other way. In my real life, new people do sometimes talk to me in this baby voice. It’s very weird. If they only know me post-diagnosis, Americans talk to me like we’re on Sesame Street.”
His diagnosis came between making seasons one and two of Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, which Thomas created, wrote and starred in. He had long felt an affinity with autistic people, and wanted to write a show with a realistic autistic lead. “But I knew nothing, so I watched documentaries; did interviews with people who have, or are experts in, autism. They’d say things autistic people do: patterns of behaviour; the way autistic people think. As it was broadcast, the internet decided the character I was playing was definitely autistic. But as I watched it back, I realised he’s just me. So I was sort of diagnosed by Twitter.”
On reflection, it stacked up. Raised in Brisbane, Thomas started comedy aged 17. “Me socialising as a teenager was very different to now. You’d burst into tears watching me chitchat. I started standup because having a conversation at a barbecue was so scary. It allowed me to explain who I was through monologue.” He found that thrilling. “A structured environment for communicating, with procedures and rules.”
From there, a career came together with unexpected ease: his first solo standup show won best newcomer at the Melbourne international comedy festival. In 2009, aged 22, he was cast as a series regular on Talkin’ ’Bout Your Generation, a hit Aussie panel show. The following year Please Like Me was commissioned. “My mum had attempted suicide a bunch of times,” he says. “I hadn’t seen it talked about on TV in a realistic, mature way. These days all shows have mental health storylines. They didn’t then. I wanted to make a show that was neither comedy nor drama, but a blend of the two.”
Again, in 2024 that’s commonplace. “But back in two-thousand-and-whatever, it was a novelty.” While writing that script, Thomas came out. “I started the show straight. Then I became gay.” He met a boy, fell in love. “We didn’t make a big deal of it on screen. I literally deleted whatever name was in there as my love interest, a woman, and replaced it with Geoffrey.” That nonchalance resonated.
He was catapulted into the Australian spotlight. Not only a household name, but an LGBTQ+ and mental health figurehead, even if by default. “I absolutely hated the attention,” he says now. “I started doing standup to avoid chitchat with strangers. Then suddenly random people wanted to talk to me. Often about their mum’s mental health. It was a lot.” Today, he finds these interactions easier. They also lean far less suicide-heavy. “I’m far more chill now. You just grow up, and again, stop being a little bitch.”
Aged 30, Thomas landed in Los Angeles to shoot Everything’s Gonna Be Okay. He has lived there for six years. At the end of this summer, he will return to Australia permanently. “I can’t do America any more,” he says of the move, “because of Americans. Well, people in LA. We’re not a personality match. They’re all ambitious, talking about five-year plans at parties.”
There was a period, some years ago, when Thomas was more outspoken. He regularly appeared on straight political TV panel shows. He’d get into online debates. “I would go on serious news shows to say serious things and stand up for stuff, but I’d never do that now. It was so brave.
“I don’t want to fight about politics any more,” he says, for a moment uncharacteristically earnest. “Not because it’s resolved; people keep fighting and fighting and getting more crazy and divided. I don’t want to be part of it. Now I can make TV and stage shows not talking about what I’m against; I’m creating things that set out what I’m for.”
Josh Thomas performs Let’s Tidy Up at The Lowry, Manchester, 27 July; and Pleasance Courtyard: Pleasance Two, Edinburgh, 31 July to 25 August.
