Great Gadsby

Hannah wants a wife. It's the title of Hannah Gadsby's new comedy show, but it's also a fact – or, at least, she'd like it to be an option. Hannah Wants A Wife sees the comedian take on gay marriage and the debate surrounding it in a show that promises to be interesting, topical and thoroughly thought-provoking – but mostly it'll just be hilarious. “I thought I'd do a show about gay marriage because it's in the Zeitgeist,” Gadsby explains. “But I got a bit sidetracked so the show looks at marriage in general and the institution that people claim gays would destroy.

“There seems to be a big argument in the community about gay marriage but most people I know actually tend to be pretty relaxed about it. Even my mum thinks gay marriage would be a great idea.”

Gadbsy introduced the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has also performed it around Australia, fine-tuning it along the way. “It's definitely been tweaked,” Gadsby admits. “I get bored so I have to introduce new stuff and since I first wrote the show there have been other developments so I refer to those too.”

Perhaps best known for her work on Adam Hills' In Gordon Street Tonight, Gadsby first toured back in 2007 with Hannah Gadsby Is Wrong & Broken, though stand-up didn't always seem to be a likely path. “I was having a pretty rough time before I started comedy and I was a bit directionless in my mid-twenties. I was a seasonal worker on farms, planting trees with no real hope for good employment.”

Though she discovered some unlikely guidance in Bill Cosby, of all people. “I had a Cosby tape and I used to poach his material and pass it off as my own, which is tricky given that he was a middle-aged black man who lives in America and I was a young white girl living in Tasmania.”

Gadsby could always count on getting a few laughs at the pub – thanks to Cosby, no doubt – and a friend suggested giving comedy a try and entered her into the Raw Comedy competition, which she happened to win. “It's all been a bit of a snowball effect, so I feel very fortunate,” she says of her career. “After winning Raw Comedy, the opportunities kept popping up and I was lucky enough to make the most of them.”

Opportunities like a regular gig on In Gordon Street Tonight, which has introduced her to a national audience. “In the early days when Adam Hills was workshopping the show, he got a few comics to help out. I was lucky enough to be asked, and I complemented him quite well.”

So what's on the cards after this? “There's more Gordon Street, I'm working on a documentary project, I'll be doing a bit of live work in the UK, and I'm also writing a book,” she says of her impressive schedule. “Gosh, I've got lots on!”

But Gadsby says her current workload is unusually heavy. “In the scheme of comics, I'm actually not very prolific, but I like to think of myself as thorough. Though others might just say I'm lazy.” Thorough? Lazy? Who knows? But there's no denying she's funny.