Comic bares more than her soul onstage

She is known for uncompromisingly honest stand-up about her breast cancer – and now Tig Notaro has taken an even bolder step by performing topless.

In a spontaneous move, the American comic ripped her shirt open at the New York Comedy Festival to perform a large part of her set half-naked, baring her double-mastectomy scars.

It came after she told a story about being patted down at airport security, describing the staff's apparent confusion about whether she was female.

After she had finished, she unbuttoned her jacket; prompting a cat-call of 'Whooo!'

New York reviewers report that she looked surprised, and asked: 'Did you not hear the story I was just telling?'

She added: 'You know, it’s funny. I was going to do this show with my shirt off, anyway. I’m about one more "Whoo" away from going topless.'

Predictably more whoops followed, and Notaro ripped her shirt open, 'Superman-like'.

After the shock of her gesture had died down, she performed the last 20 to 30 minutes of her show topless, barely mentioning the situation. Although she did comment: 'I’m very aware that people are like, "When's she gonna...?" I’m not gonna.'

The New York Times said: 'It was a powerful, even inspiring, statement about survival and recovery, and yet, it had the larky feel of a dare.'

And the New Yorker said: 'By not thinking and doing the inappropriate thing, Notaro, not for the first time, found within her joke-telling a moment of transcendence. The image was almost too easy to read as allegory: a comic literally willing to bare it all, her flesh literally scarred, the shape of her body a living rebuke to gender norms.'

Notaro received a standing ovation at the end of her set, then buttoned up her shirt, jumped down from the Town Hall stage and ran triumphantly through the auditorium.

Published: 8 Nov 2014