Hannah Gadsby: Arts Clown
- Radio stand-up
- BBC Radio 4
- 2015
- 4 episodes (1 series)
Hannah Gadsby presents a stand-up show based on her successful one-woman comedy art shows. Also features John Lloyd.
Press clippings
Radio Times review
As a useful adjunct to BBC One's The Big Painting Challenge, try Hannah Gadsby's new series in which the Tasmanian comedian/art historian analyses four works of art. She also sketches in her own life as a gay art student, while a sardonic talking robot, who sounds to me like comedy producer John Lloyd, plays Richard Osman to Gadsby's Alexander Armstrong.
Amateur artists should draw inspiration from the fact that all four masterpieces were dissed by contemporary critics. The pieces scrutinised are Manet's Olympia (1865); Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434); Michelangelo's David (1504); and Picasso's Les demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). The robot impersonates Sister Wendy, which is much appreciated. As with Paul Sinha's similar comic reinterpretations of history, newcomer Gadsby elicits fascinating facts (Manet's nude was an artist in her own right).
David McGillivray, Radio Times, 4th March 2015