Hot on the heels of the global success of her seminal masterworks, Nannette and Douglas, Hannah Gadsby, one of Australia's biggest and best comedic exports (slash art historians), is returning to Sydney this September, due to popular demand, to bring back her latest live comedy show at the Sydney Opera House.
Body of Work premiered in Sydney in December 2021 as part of a national tour, and now she's doing the rounds again, hot on the heels of dropping a new book, Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation. Having skyrocketed for her affecting, dark and honest storytelling, Gadsby felt like she owed us more of a feel-good show this time around, "a bit of ta-dah" – a love story, even.
Her 2018 breakout blockbuster Nanette was supposed to be Gadsby's stand-up swansong, the comic vowing before its premiere at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival that the show would be her last. However, its seismic impact, which led to Nanette touring all over the world, as well as it being picked up by Netflix, put Gadsby's retirement on indefinite hold.
The Emmy and Peabody award-winning comedian was flooded with global offers to perform, and the follow-up to Nanette, named after her beloved dog Douglas, only cemented her position in the firmament of worldwide comedy megastars. However, the events of 2020 had other plans for Gadsby's ascendent career. As the world locked down and theatres were shuttered, she was forced to return home to Australia and began thinking about a new stand-up show.
Gadsby is famously guarded about the contents of her new shows, and beyond it being entirely original and born of her contemplations on the pandemic, not much is known about what Body of Work will actually be about. For those who know Gadsby's cerebral, earth-shaking, Powerful-with-a-capital-P comedy, those details hardly matter. Once the mic is in her hands, sides will split, tears will jerk, and no one will leave unchanged.
Tickets on sale from 9am, Thursday April 14, and cost $74.90 for a standard adult ticket.
