After a charming warm-up act by young Indian comic, Urooj Ashfaq – who talks about such “edgy” topics as her parent’s divorce (commonplace here but still considered unseemly in her Indian birthplace), going to therapy and her Muslim faith – Hannah Gadsby takes to the stage, with the stirring strains of Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’, heralding their entrance.
For those who’ve seen Nanette, Gadsby needs no introduction, but for newcomers their comedic style is whip-smart conversational, with a scattergun approach. Indeed, they start off wondering what’s happened to all the Cabbage Patch dolls so prevalent in their youth, then gets stuck into the Barbie movie and Taylor Swift (they are not a fan of either) and hence wonders whether they’d be cancelled by feminism for daring to go against popular opinion. Swifties’ ire aside, there were still plenty of us who laughed and laughed loudly at the singer’s description as being ‘a can of Coke masquerading as a sorority cult’.
But Gadsby roams far and wide in this show – which on this particular night went half an hour over time and is reflective of the ease in which they can talk just about anything and everything. So, whether that’s the World Cup, abortion and the Supreme Court of the US, the death of their father (you’ll learn what “admin grief” is), scatological discoveries in a regional hotel room or swimming with whales, this assured comedian works the crowd with the confidence of someone who’s on top of their game. Oh and they do a damn good dog impersonation too.
Read: Comedy review: Reuben Kaye, Apocalipstik, The Malthouse, MICF 2024
Tickets: $55-$79
Hannah Gadsby, Woof! will be performing at the Arts Centre Melbourne until 20 April 2024 as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF 2024).
