Starting in 2019, Gadsby toured internationally with their show Douglas and the recorded special was released on Netflix in 2020. In 2021, they were awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Tasmania.[1] In March 2022, their self-penned book Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation was published. They appeared as a recurring cast member in season four of Netflix's Sex Education as Celia, a radio show host.[2]
My meltdowns had always been a mystery to me, so when I was finally diagnosed, I was able to reframe the way I thought about my strange little outbursts. For a start, I became far more compassionate toward myself, which probably halved the distress of the occasions.
Gadsby worked in bookshops in Canberra and became a projectionist at an outdoor cinema in Darwin. They spent two years picking vegetables and planting trees along the east coast of Australia. Gadsby became homeless, which they later attributed in part to their ADHD, and ill enough with acute pancreatitis to require hospitalisation.[8]
In a review for Time Out of their next show Douglas, Ben Neutze wrote, "Yes, it was funny, but Gadsby's main objective was to deliver a fiery and furious takedown of the heterosexual patriarchy."[20] According to Mary Luckhurst, writing in Persona Studies, Gadsby's "stand-up has to be set against the epidemic of gender-based violence which continues to infect Australian life and which was declared a 'national crisis' by the Federal Government in 2015."[21]
In March 2019, Gadsby previewed their show, Douglas, in Adelaide,[25] before touring the U.S. and Australia, where many shows were sold out in advance.[26] In the show, they explore personal revelations "with empathy, wit and some extremely relatable metaphor", and create something "bigger than comedy" according to one reviewer of the preview show.[27] In Douglas, they discuss their autism diagnosis, aiming to help people understand neurodiversity as part of a normal variation of the human condition.[28][29] In a review of the show for Time Out, Anne-Marie Peard wrote, "Douglas will create change and help people, especially undiagnosed women, to see that they may not have the right words to describe how they experience life; it's describing that experience to those who still say or think the words that belittle and damage."[28] In 2020, Netflix released a filmed version of the live show.[30]
In July 2021, Gadsby started a solo show, title Body of Work in several venues in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the UK.[31] Dates were also announced in the United States.[32] A review of Body of Work for The Guardian by Brian Logan describes the show as "a winning return for Gadsby, to whose heavy-hitting accomplishments can now be added a flair for comedy with a light heart."[33] In 2022, Netflix announced its plans to release a recording from the Body of Work tour in 2023.[34][35] In April 2023, Netflix announced the television special about this tour was going to be titled Something Special.[36] On May 10 2023, the show was released on Netflix.[37][38][39]
Gadsby co-wrote and co-starred in the Australian ABC TV show Adam Hills Tonight through three seasons from February 2011 to July 2013. They had regular segments called "On This Day" and "Hannah Has A Go" and also featured on the couch, contributing as host Adam Hills interviewed his guests.[42][43] They co-wrote (with Matthew Bate) and presented a three-part series on ABC, Hannah Gadsby's Oz, which aired in March 2014.[44] Produced by Closer Productions, this series set out to "debunk the myths of the Australian identity perpetuated by [its] national art".[45] From 2013 to 2016, they co-wrote 20 episodes of the television series Please Like Me with fellow comedian Josh Thomas. In it, they played Hannah, a fictional version of themself.[46] They appeared as a recurring cast member in season four of Netflix's Sex Education as Celia, a radio show producer.[2]
Between 2009 and 2013, Gadsby presented comedy art tours in conjunction with the National Gallery of Victoria, with themes such as paintings of the Holy Virgin, Dadaism, Modernism, Impressionism and the nude in art. They have given talks on art and opened exhibitions.[50] Gadsby has written and presented two documentary specials for the Artscape program on ABC TV: Hannah Gadsby Goes Domestic (2010)[51] and The NGVStory (2011).[52] In 2015, they wrote and performed Hannah Gadsby: Arts Clown, a series for BBC Radio 4 based on their comedy art shows.[53]
From June through September 2023, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Pablo Picasso's death, the Brooklyn Museum hosted It's Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby. The exhibition, curated by Gadsby, was meant to explore Picasso's "complicated legacy through a critical, contemporary, and feminist lens, even as it acknowledges his work's transformative power and lasting influence".[54][55] It was co-curated with Catherine Morris of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Lisa Small of the Brooklyn Museum.[54] The show was lambasted by art critics;[56][57] Alex Greenberger of ARTnews called the show "disastrous", and Jason Farago of The New York Times commented, "if you thought Gadsby had something to say about Picasso, the joke — the only good joke of the day, in fact — is on you. [...] This new exhibition backs away from close looking for the affirmative comforts of social-justice-themed pop culture."[58][59][60]
In March 2022, Gadsby's self-penned book Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation was published. The book was a New York Timesbestseller[61] and is published in more than ten languages.[62]
The audiobook[63] version is read by Gadsby, and was an April 2022 Earphones Award Winner,[64] and was a finalist for the Audie Award for Narration by the Author category in the 2023 Audie Awards.[65] The AudioFile Magazine review of the audiobook states that Gadsby "delivers this audiobook in the same way she performs on stage, demonstrating a mastery of expression and pacing that allows her words and stories to have maximum impact."[66]
A review in Time by Trish Bendix stated the book "addresses the weighted issues of historical gender-based violence, misogyny, sexual abuse, homophobia, ableism and fatphobia, all of which Gadsby has directly experienced", and that Gadsby wrote, "I am triggering all the warnings."[67]Kirkus Reviews described the memoir as a "witty and provocatively written life story" and wrote, "Consistently self-effacing and contemplative, Gadsby acknowledges that [their] unique brand of deadpan observational comedy isn't for everyone, especially since it often skewers 'the two most overly sensitive demographics the world has ever known: straight white cis men and self-righteous comedians.'"[68]
Thomas Floyd wrote in a review for The Washington Post, "For a comic critiqued by some misguided souls as not being funny enough, Gadsby sure understands how to get the last laugh."[69]Publishers Weekly wrote, "This stirring tale of resilience laughs in the face of the 'inspiration porn' industry."[70] Dana Dunham wrote for the Chicago Review of Books that Gadsby "describes Nanette's inception, its iterations, and its careful layering, representing [their] thinking in actual images of [their] early notes and through artistic metaphor: the shapes of ideas, the palette of thoughts. Any artist, any creator should value the chance to examine the composition of this revolutionary work, and the context from which it came."[71]
Gadsby is lesbian and often includes LGBTQ-related themes in her stand-up routines.[6][72] They are genderqueer[73] and uses they/them pronouns.[37][39][74][75] In the introduction to the program 'Gender Agenda', Gadsby says:[76]
I haven't picked a team. 'Gender-fluid', but also.... 'Non-binary' works, kind of, in theory, but the term 'non-binary' distresses me. Because to define yourself by something you are not... is the cornerstone of binary thinking. If I was to make up a gender for myself, it would be 'gender-surprised', because it doesn't matter how people gender me. Because I get the whole set everyday. She/her, he/him, they/them, every day. And none of them offend me, but all of them surprise me. Every interaction with a stranger is a tiny gender reveal party for me.
2021: Honorary Doctorate, Doctor of Literature honoris causa, awarded by the University of Tasmania, in recognition of their role as "an ambassador for all LGBTIQ+ people world-wide"[1]