Hannah Gadsby is going on tour with Douglas, a follow-up to Nanette
Hannah Gadsby is going on tour with a new show, Douglas, the first since her critically-acclaimed Nanette turned her into a household name. (Charley Gallay/Getty for AFI)
Lesbian comedian Hannah Gadsby has confirmed her return to stand-up comedy, announcing a new tour set to start in her native Australia in March.
The tour is titled Douglas, after Gadsby’s dog and will be performed for 10 days in Melbourne before the comedian travels to the US, bringing the show to 13 venues across 10 states between April and July, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shows in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and the rest of Australia are also due to be announced at a later date, the publication reported on Monday (February 4).
Hannah Gadsby says new show Douglas will pick up from where Nanette left off
Douglas will mark the eleventh tour in Gadsby’s career, but the first since the success of Nanette, which was streamed on Netflix last year propelling the comedian to global popularity.
Nanette was meant to be Gadsby’s goodbye to stand-up, as the comedian declared herself fed up with the self-deprecation expected to make the audience laugh. But as she first announced in July, Nanette‘s success forced Gadsby to reconsider her position.
“I feel like with Nanette I found my voice… I may as well use it now that I’ve found it.”
— Hannah Gadsby
“No, I lied. I think I lied,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday (February 5), adding: “No look, that was—it was a complicated statement. What else am I going to do? Profoundly skill-less and, you know, I’ve got a lot to say now. I feel like with Nanette I found my voice… I may as well use it now that I’ve found it.”
Gadsby, however, said she will keep up the pledge of no longer using her traumatic experiences to elicit a laughter.
“I don’t need to talk about my own traumas on stage any more, but it is looking at stories with an outward view. So I’m using a little bit more art history, having a chat, I’ll probably talk about my dog a lot—it’s named after my dog, Douglas, so I think that’s what’s on my mind,” the comedian told the Australian newspaper.
Hannah Gadsby said her new show Douglas will pick up from where Nanette left off. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for for Australians in Film)
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gadsby revealed a few more details about the issues she’ll address in the new show, which she described as picking up where Nanette left off.
“I thought it was interesting for me and I’ve been thinking a lot about how does one who is well practiced in the art of negative attention deal with a sudden influx of positive attention?
“The show is around my inability to wrangle positive attention. I’ll talk about that and expect applause at the end, which is a contradiction. But that’s life!” she said.
