‘We’re all learning’: why Netflix needs Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda

A mixed bill of standups, presented by the Nanette star and due to be recorded for the streamer, is a valuable response to its Dave Chappelle controversy

When Dave Chappelle released his Netflix special The Closer, widely condemned for its transphobia, fellow standup Hannah Gadsby was among the protesters, describing the streamer as an “amoral algorithm cult” in an open letter to its CEO, Ted Sarandos. Now comes Netflix’s “carbon offset show”, as Gadsby drolly calls it: a mixed bill featuring the Nanette star and their curated lineup of “gender diverse” standups. It is being recorded on Saturday; the Soho theatre gig I attended earlier this week was a warmup.

It’s a curious confection in some ways. There is no shortage of queer comedy nights already operating, the LOL Word prominent among them. Broadcast an event like that and we’d all get a sense of a thriving and supportive comedy community. We don’t necessarily get that sense from Gadsby’s night because the acts are selected from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, and because Gadsby seems barely to know some of them. The night was going to be called “Hannah Gadsby and friends,” the 45-year-old jokes – but that would have been stretching a point.