Natalie Palamides’s drag king show remains both raucous and subtle, as it explores grey areas around consent
There can be sacrifices when live comedy transfers to TV – and I expected them with Natalie Palamides’ hot-button anarcho-clown show Nate. But sometimes – it turns out – comedy can be more electrifying on screen. Yes, Nate was extraordinary first time around, when its bull-in-a-china-shop inquiry into gender and consent became the talk of Edinburgh 2018. But at a fringe festival, its ingredients (nudity and cross-dressing; unstable audience interaction; giant rubber cocks) are par for the course. On Netflix, they feel like a major provocation.
Comparisons are already being made with Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, another fringe graduate that upended mainstream standup. Nate is so untoward, it comes with a pre-show warning from producer Amy Poehler. It’s not required: Palamides can soften you up and get you going without help. S/he begins with a swaggering two-minute burlesque on machismo, all shades, chest hair and heavy metal, playing the daredevil and chugging beers. It is gloriously ridiculous – but things soon get complicated. Nate asks for permission to grope people in the audience. He instructs us in the need to secure consent – while violently chopping wood, which sends a mixed signal.