Gadsby doesn’t waiver once as she trills through a world of confusing gender dynamics. Putting pink headbands on girls is “a bit like putting a bangle on a potato,” she declares, and on her own lesbianism, she says that she now “identifies as tired.”

But when she shifts to describe “doing the comedy,” the tone of her conversation changes. Gone is the rapidly-blinking, dry pitch of her humour, replaced by a raw, declarative voice of conviction.

“I want to stop comedy because I don’t feel very comfortable in it,” she says. “Do you understand? It’s not humility, it’s humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak. I will not do it anymore.”

Gadsby identifies here with women the world over. Although she is considered to be at the top of her game, she still depends on reducing herself in order to be seen. Trapped in the patriarchal fittings of a worn and dated comedy industry, Gadsby’s life and world has to be showcased as a novelty in order to be accepted by the circuit.

Her validity of life, and her rights, are socially acceptable when makes fun of them. To stand tall and proud as a lesbian woman takes guts, she notes, and that’s when the tone of the show changes.

Initially, Gadsby interjects to make these statements of intent, while still dancing around anecdotes of the time a man said he wouldn’t hit her for hitting on his girlfriend because she was a boy, or how when she came out as a lesbian, her mum asked why she shared the news, “because murderers don’t tell where they’ve hidden the bodies.” As these anecdotes grow darker and darker, she returns to her anger.

“Comedy has frozen my trauma,” she says. “My story has value,” she says. “I will not allow my story to be destroyed. What I would have done to have heard a story like mine … to have felt less alone.”

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