Hannah Gadsby - Hannah Wants A Wife

• Phoebe Cooke
• 21 August 2012

This article is from 2012.

Aussie comedienne delivers insightful and sharply observed art history/comedy

Gadsby wanders onto stage, already hilarious in her waistcoat and coy pride in her art history slide show. It was a hard sell, she confidentially tells us. But you’re here now, she gleams.

Concentrating on the Arnolfini Marriage painting by Jan van Eyck, (the comedian’s second favourite), Gadsby takes the audience on a whirlwind, highly selective art history tour. From the perspective of a lesbian who confesses to wrapping herself in what she calls 'a shroud of cock-block' to ward off potential male suitors, Gadsby delivers a unique take on gender and sexuality, unwrapping the many homophobic preconceptions that people have on a conscious or subconscious level.

And it’s all very funny – from her reading of female Victorian friendships to her musings on the absurdity of wanting to live so badly in bygone eras of wonderful paintings, and realizing that, for a lesbian, it would be a bit rubbish after all. If anything she could be less Miranda Hart-esque self-deprecating (even if it is endearing) – with that, and a touch more work on timing and delivery, this would be pretty damn perfect.

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 226 0000, until 26 Aug (not 13), 8.10pm, £9.50--£10.50 (£8.50--£9.50).