Aunty Donna Podcast - The Story of Our First Comedy Festival Show

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

A sincere conversation about our first Melbourne International Comedy Festival show in 2012. Plus drama school, Pixar, La Porchetta, and more!  LINKS  Buy tickets to our DREM World Tour https://tour.auntydonna.com/ Follow @theauntydonnagallery on Instagram https://bit.ly/auntydonna-ig  Become a Patreon supporter at http://auntydonnaclub.com/  CREDITS   Hosts: Broden Kelly, Zachary Ruane, & Mark Bonanno   Producer: Lindsey Green Digital Producers: Michael Campbell, Jim Cruse & Tanya Zerek Managing Producer: Sam Cavanagh Join The Aunty Donna Club: https://www.patreon.com/auntydonnaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A listener production. Let me just start by saying this is a very different episode this week. We decided to do something different. Look at us. Dylan's gone acoustic. I mean electric. You know the deal. Enjoy it. More stuff like this on our Aunty Donna Patreon, the Donna Club. Go to Patreon.com for Aunty Donna for more of it. Thank you for being a friend of ours. We love you deeply.

Thank you for being with us all these years. You'll see why I'm saying that now. Bounce that pill. Ha ha ha ha ha. You're listening to the Aunty Donna podcast. The greatest fucking podcast in the world. Burning like a sack and sometimes a guest. We hope you enjoy the motherfucking podcast.

G'day folks and welcome to the Aunty Donna broadcast. It is a broadcast. It is a broadcast. Broadcasted by Mark. Next time, consider Mark. Whether. For your next function. Why not choose Mark?

Yeah, I can come around and I can hide in the toilets. Folks, we decided to do something a little bit different today. This 52 weeks of the year and why not in some weeks? And you know, we might take off one or two, but why not do something a little bit different here and there? We're obviously recording this during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Zach is on vocal rest because he's doing a play at the Comedy Festival with his friend Alexi Tleopoulos

and my friend and your friend but I guess they're better friends. Yes, very close friends and collaborators. He's Greek. Are you aware of this? Who's Greek? Who do you think? Ruayne or Toleopoulos? Well, I'm gonna have to go with Zach. All right. Because I've, anyway, well, he's here, but Zach is just on vocal rest today. So it's just you and I talking to that, Mark.

Yeah, isn't that crazy? But hey, I wanted to take this opportunity to just do a left turn and be, and instead of having heightened characters and 10 out of 10 comedy, which we're known for on this podcast, I think we were awarded this year the podcast with the most positive feedback of any podcast in the world. Really? By who? The viewers. Really?

Yeah. Viewers' Choice. Yeah, we won the Viewers' Choice. Who else has run Viewers'. We won the viewers choice. Who else has run viewers choice before? MTV? Hitler. Hitler had a viewers choice? Well he won in Germany in 19. I think that was just an election, like a political election.

Well I want, that's a good point. But in some ways... Awards can be wrong is what I mean to say there because he was the worst man ever. Yes. And so sometimes they can be wrong. Yes. But what I wanted to do with you today Mark is just take a walk down memory lane. Well you know I'm a little nostalgia slut.

Explain that. Explain what a nostalgia... I just like that. I just you know I like nostalgia. I just don't you know. But what I like nostalgia but I'm not a nostalgia slut. What is, what makes you a nostalgia? A dirty little slut for nostalgia. So what does that entail?

It usually means I come when we talk about the past. Well folks, you might be in luck because this is a trip down memory lane, but Mark will, if the nostalgia hits just right. It hits just in that spot. He will come and that might mean spoof. It doesn't have to mean spoof. No it doesn't. But will you spoof?

I can use the muscles in my core to have a full body orgasm and not spill a drop. Can you do that today because this is a rented studio? Yes, and I love these pants. Thank you for thinking of your pants in the room. I'd hate to ruin them. I know you said we didn't have to be funny for this podcast. I'm sorry I'm being so hilarious. You can't go...

Mark's having a bit of a breakdown at the moment. Folks, what just happened after Mark, milliseconds after Mark stopped pushing vocal core and vibrations out of his mouth, as soon as he stopped talking, Mark had a full mental breakdown and now his body language is shrugged over now and he is looking at the ground,

he's picked up a yellow fedora that sits on the thing. And I can see because he went to drama school and because his body is an instrument, I can see that he's thinking, I've wasted my life. And now he's nodding. Yeah. Yeah. I lose confidence very quickly. Yeah.

But you spoof even quicker. Oh, you have no idea how quick. Show me. It already happened. Wow. Um, do you want to talk about some bullshit? You wanted to go... you wanted to talk about... Mark! Yes?

Do you remember that it is 2025? Yes, it is. Do you remember when Aunty Donna started? I remember. Oh, I remember. But there's a few moments. What year? Depends what you mean.

When did we do? Well, yes, we did. The first whispering, the first whispers of something before it was Auntie Donna. 1600 AD, weren't they? The first recorded knowledge of Aunty Donna was in a Elizabethan sonnet, wasn't it? I believe so. We started doing it in 2011. 2011. Well, did we? Folks, this episode, and maybe put some like blulululing under this Lindsay. I know we absolutely did 2011.

Come back to that. This episode folks, we will title the story. I'm just waiting for the cool music because I think it's going to be worth it. Okay. Just click whatever Lindsay, just click it. Just click whatever comes up, just click it. Are you cold by the way? You're all rugged up. Well, this morning I walked the dog at 7 a.m. And it was 12 degrees

Yeah, wow, yeah, and I've just trained and I and I remembered being in this studio last time and it was fucking freezing Yes, and so I went I'm just gonna keep it rolling. Yeah nice the story of Auntie Donna's first show Now turn this fucking shit off. I Can't stand that Lindsay. It's very Married couple vlogging on YouTube. Yeah, actually put that back on Hey guys, my name's Broden I'm Jacinta Lee and um, we want to talk about the first Auntie Donna show

Oh, I'm Mark. Sorry I thought we were doing something else. You gotta turn that shit off. Turn that shit off. So you, what it was, I believe we did our first live show in 2012. Correct. But a large proportion of the writing of it. We, a couple of lads met up in a room and went,

well, we're like, we're going to change the world of comedy. We're going to become, we're going to write a sketch comedy show and we're going to do it at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. 13 years ago to the date, essentially, of when we're sitting here. And do you remember the first few rehearsals? I remember, what do I remember? I even remember sort of pre that because I was in third year university, you'd already graduated. Yeah I was so good that I graduated before you. Well you

yeah you were yes you also went into uni a year earlier. That's mostly it, is I started a year earlier. Big part of it. But not all of it. Even though I'm much older than you. You're so much older than me. Much older. We couldn't even date because people would call you a cradle snatcher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're 37 and I'm 36. Yeah, it's crazy. But I remember getting a little Facebook message about wanting to start something.

I can't remember if it was from you all, Zach. I'll tell you. Please. I watched a documentary called Monty Python's Almost the Truth which is a documentary made by Terry Jones's son and it's the probably the best breakdown of Monty Python. Would you say Beatles of what we do? The Beatles of what we do? Yeah. Of Melbourne based sketch comedy? Yes. Yes. Monty Python are the Beatles of what? Did you think I was saying

we're the Beatles? Yes. No, no, no, no, no, I would never say that. Okay. I'm saying Monty Python are the Beatles of what we do. Of what we are of comedy. Yes. What did you think I would talk me through what you thought? You were saying do you think we, Aunty Donna, are the Beatles of what we do? And when I think of what we do, which is like niche sketch comedy based out of Melbourne, then yeah, I guess we're the Beatles of that. I guess. Yeah. I would have phrased it Monty Python are the Beatles of sketch. No, we're not the Beatles of anything.

Make that really clear. We're more the wings of sketch. Make that really clear. We're more the wings of Sketch Committee. In that half of us. In that we've got some fucking hits that you're like, that's as good as Monty Python. Really? But then the rest of, I would say there's some stuff that we've done that's like, you know. That's their worst stuff maybe.

As best as their worst stuff. Yes, that's what I mean. Like, Wings, the best of Wings is as good as the worst of the Beatles which is still pretty good Yeah, not a lot of bad Beatles. Yeah, but we're not the Beatles. Let's make that very clear No, we are bigger than Jesus though. Oh, yeah, he would have been short 2025 years ago He would have been pretty short like yeah well cuz people humans slowly grow we're like four foot oh I have no I need to get like a historian in

mmm which we can do we can get it like go to Melbourne Union get historian ask help do whatever the fuck we want when the Beatles sketch comedy no I don't feel comfortable saying that really well you should pick your words we've been performing for like recording for like five ten minutes and you've already said we're the Beatles of sketch comedy. I said no such thing. I mistookingly heard such a thing. I think that they're the Beatles of comedy. Yes. And I watched that and I was like how they started and I was sitting at home in my parents house and I was like, oh we should try that.

So I messaged Zach, who is someone who I respected greatly as far as a comedic performer, and I said yeah, you've been talking about doing, let's try and start one and he said well I, the first person I recruit is Sam Lingham, the writer. He wants to be a writer, he doesn't wanna perform, he just wants to be a writer. And Sam still does that. And then he said, and I said, well, great, my mate Adrian has to do it.

Of course. Not the funniest guy I knew. And then he was like, but we gotta get the best one of the year level below us, the best one. And we genuinely thought that the year level below us had this wacky little guy with a little mustache and his work physically was outstanding and his characters, he was wonderful and his name was Mark. I was going to try and do a funny thing but it was too obvious. The misdirection was to say your name there as opposed to saying no.

Yeah I was expecting it and that's very kind. We said you're the Beatles of that year level. Just me on my own. I was a full Lennon McCartney. So yes we started the group right and then we booked in for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and we said let's just we thought we paid the rego and we're like, we're doing it. Yeah, because there's a big thing at uni. I remember when you get to third year, the head of the school sits everyone down and she goes to everyone, hey, there's no work in this country.

Hey, 99% of the people in this room in a couple of weeks after you do your showcase at the MTC for Melbourne's biggest, hottest agents. Yeah, agents all come and see you do a show at the end of your drama school. Yeah. She's like, 99% of you will never work again. Because you suck. Yeah, because like- You suck losers.

You pack of shit losers. Untalented people you're just here so we can suck as much money as we can It's a full-on speech. It's really it's it's degrading in a lot of ways But one of the biggest things that she says is if you want to work you need to be autonomous You need to go make your own Stuff not autonomous in the sense of like RoboCop or Terminator. Imagine that. That would be sick. I need you all to be... If you want to work in this country you need to be a killer robot. Yeah. As a bad school. It wasn't a bad school. It was just

strange ramblings of insane people for three years You need to be autonomous you need to make your own work and the funny thing about that is I feel like there are two different types of people that hear that message in drama school There's the people who go Yeah, fuck. All right. I gotta figure this out. I gotta figure this out and then there's the people that go Yeah, but not me figure this out and then there's the people that go yeah but not me. It's true for everyone in this room but not me. And those are the ones that fail the quickest, the ones that fail the hardest and the fastest.

Yeah because you go like well there's like people in the world that go nah global warming's not real. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. As opposed to the people that go help and but they still we all die at the same time though. Yeah all die at the same time though no no that actually is a good yeah and so I would say that we were all ones that went yeah fuck all right got to do something not me and we were right

where were those few ones that said not me and we're right but I remember even in its earliest days, it was literally just a thing to do to stop us from being bored. Yeah. While we were all pursuing. We had meetings. A lot of meetings. A lot of that first year. A lot of just meeting up and going, if we did comedy, it would be so good.

None of this shit comedy, we'd be doing great comedy. All right, see you in two months. It was all so good. None of this shit comedy. We'd be doing great comedy. All right, see you in two months. It was all so by design. I think that's really interesting. I don't know if a lot of people know this. I don't know how many times we've told this story. But it was a year of every now and then sitting down, doing meetings.

Remember we did very early demos at Joe Koski's house in Kensington. We recorded, I wonder if they're still around, but we recorded not podcasts, but radio sketches. Yeah, we did radio sketches. Just to get some, we had a Facebook group where we tried, you know, people would just post like loose ideas. Yeah. These are the days before Slack.

Yeah. I think. Facebook groups. Yeah. And it was all just about, the meetings were all about if we were to do comedy, what would it be? And literally what we came to was we were like, no one's doing stupid, no one's doing dumb. Sketch feels very like smart and whippy and British. Not that that's a bad thing, but it just felt like that's yeah The biggest sketch group at the time was yeah idiots of ants Yeah, Facebook in real life. Yeah. Yeah, it was their video. Yes. It was they may have been one of the first We were kind of starting before videos Online were like a big deal really yeah like yeah like there was

Sketch I guess if you called Tim and Eric sketch. Yeah. Yeah. But there wasn't what it is now where everyone is just doing like essentially what is a sketch, which is like a 30 to a minute little joke. Yeah. Yeah. It was sort of just the days of, I believe it was referred to a scripted content was kind of, you know, people started becoming a little popular and being able to like have a bit of a career, you know, when the algorithm was fucking chill and you

still got still make quite a money, quite a lot of money from ads on YouTube and shit. But we were babies. We didn't know shit. We were so I would argue for, for people that were in their 20s in 2011, all of us were pretty fucking offline. Oh yeah, right. Sorry. We were hot. We were all fucking hot. We were all very sexy.

Yeah, yeah. We were very offline. Yeah. Do I remember like, sorry to get all I remember when. No, please. But like getting home from the day of doing something and checking Facebook. Yeah. Not all day, every day, like while on a road

doing 120, checking my phone. Yeah, just fucking. Just getting home and going through the Facebooks of the day. Yeah. I remember waking up every morning during uni. I'd open up my laptop and my homepage was the Pixar blog, which was, I believe, an Australian man.

Talking about Pixar. You loved Pixar. I was obsessed with Pixar at that time. You also put up an article in the common area of our university about the fall of the Simpsons. What? Almost like the Lutherans put up a protest, you know, nailed into the door of the cathedral. I don't think I did this. You did it about the Simpsons changing, the Simpsons changing from this to this.

You pinned it up on a wall. You know the article I'm talking about, yeah? You're a very good actor. I'm bad judging. And I have a very bad memory. You know what the fuck you are talking about. Do you remember an article about the Simpsons changing and why the Simpsons had turned bad? No.

No, I genuinely don't. I could be fucking wrong, but I believe A, there was an article about the Simpsons that was like, this is why it's gotten bad and it's gone from this to this. Yeah. And I think it was about it losing its heart. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I believe you may have printed it and put it up,

pinned it up in the student lab. Okay. Look, I don't remember. I don't know who to ring. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. It doesn't mean it happened either. But I mean, you have a better memory than I. Yeah, I remember it happening, but.

I feel like I would remember, cause I remember. Do you think, is there any world where you would do that? Um... Well let's go to an ad break. This is gonna be a long episode too, I'm nowhere near fucking done. Yeah, no, no, there's heaps to do, there's heaps to talk about. And if this isn't for you, I'm so sorry, but this is just this week's. We'll be back to that stuff you hate next week as well.

Yeah, don't worry about it. And we're back. I don't think so. That doesn't sound like me. I know me. I wonder. I don't know. Is there a way, who would I ring?

To find that out. If you put up an article, like posted an article in a common area about why The Simpsons and Got Bad. Honestly. Malcolm Nash? I mean, yeah, he would, yeah, maybe he would remember some sort of, Malcolm might have a thought. If you know and you're listening, please write in.

Yeah. But anyway. I don't remember the article. I don't remember printing an article. I don't remember putting an article up on a wall. That worries me. There's one story I've told about Zach that I remember that is- Go on.

I've already told this, but it may have only been on the Patreon. Give us an abridged version. It was just that Up was coming out, I believe in 2010 and being a big Pixar fan, I was very excited for this. And I was like, because you know, I wasn't, I was on the, what was it called? The Youth Allowance or whatever, like the dull. Yeah, you were on the government support. Yeah, money you're on. The student support. Yeah, government support. To learn how to be an actor.

Yeah, which I wonder how much, I'm trying to remember how much that was, but I do remember that my rent. Because you stayed on it for like 15 years and just like, and lied to the government. I'm still. Yeah, you lied to the government. Still collect the money. Yeah, you say you're a union. Yeah, I've got it.

You found a loophole, yeah? Yeah, yeah. It's good, just a bit of pocket money. I remember I was like, you know, but I like, you know, was pretty good at prioritizing and savings. I had like a little bit of savings. I think it was like, fuck, how much did I, I remember I showed my housemate how much savings I had and they were like, you're fucking rich. And I think it was like $350.

Well, that is a lot. I used to live off. I used to withdraw a $20 note on a Monday. Yeah. And it would see me through to Friday. Oh man. I remember having 50 bucks going to the grocery store. Yeah. And being like getting the shop done for myself for the week. I remember that so clearly. Crazy. How did I live on 20 bucks a week?

Fuck man. I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember the price of things. Yeah, but like inflations obviously happen but even so. I know. Say it's 40, I couldn't live off 40 bucks a week. Wild.

Fucking wild. I mean maybe I could. Maybe I should. There's maybe a way. No, I don't think so. Not if you're including rent. I don't know. You're not including it. I think when I say 20, I mean food. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then rent, my rent per month in Ballarat,

no one wants to live in Ballarat firstly, so then there's no market demand. But my rent was genuine and it was higher than everyone else's. Mine was like 500 bucks a month. Wow. I remember mine being way cheaper but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah it could have been. What was yours? Look, I think I remember it being $80 a fortnight. That's fucking insane!

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was 80 a week. Was it like a house of four people and it was bad? No, was it like a fairly new kind of and I had the big room with the walk-in wardrobe and the ensuite. You reckon 80 bucks a fortnight? I remember it like, yeah, it was something like that. It may have been a week, even if it was a week, that's fucking crazy. But I remember it being-

Because 160 a fortnight is insane. What does that make it? 320 a month? Yeah, maybe it was that. Maybe it was 80 a week. But I just, it was so... It was like... I still had to work like a bar job and shit, right?

But anyway... Also, the contact hours at our uni should have been illegal. Like, I remember I went to uni like six hours a week. And I was like, I'm so fucking busy man man I can't how do I cope? Time of my fucking life. I'd work like two days a week at the G MCG. Yeah. No it's just the greatest time because you felt so busy but your responsibilities weren't huge and you were doing something that you love, it was so like... And we all walked out with the... what it did do, I walked out and went,

fucking let's do this, with every bit of energy I had. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was sick. But just quickly, so I was like, hey, I really love Pixar. You would read the Pixar blog every morning. I knew everything about Pixar at that time. It was a bit of an encyclopedia. Not so much anymore I've forgotten it because I don't really give a fuck anymore. Once Disney bought I'm fucking... But and so I tried to get a group of people together to hire out a whole gold-class cinema for the premiere of Up, right? Which is what, like 12 people or something or 24 people?

Oh, like a smaller cinema, sure. The small gold class cinema. Okay. And it didn't go down well. No one wanted to do it. I started a Facebook group, tried to get people on board, no one did it. And then there was one time I'm sitting in the student lounge just eating lunch on this big table.

I was just on my own and then Zach came up to me and he went oh is this the meeting for everyone going to the Pixar film premiere? What a bitch. And he made me laugh so much. It really, it really got, I don't think Zach loves what I tell that story because it makes him seem like a prick but it was just they was that exact was very much I remember getting to uni and I had funny friends at high school. Yeah, I had funny friends in the world and People I thought they're pretty funny But I was the first time I met someone in my club and I was like he's really really just a different breed of funny I'd really sharp very smart man.

Yeah. And yeah, I remember, yeah, Zach was very funny very quickly. Yeah, yeah. And so, Karim- Flash forward, we finished, we all agreed to do it for a year. We agreed to do it. We book in to do the Melbourne Comedy Festival. We didn't know if we could really write comedy.

We'd never really done much writing at all. No. And I remember, we were like, where do we meet? So then someone figured out, I think through, I think I'd done a job that had rehearsed in library meeting rooms. And you could book library meeting rooms in Melbourne for $15 for three hours, which is a good deal. I used to live off it for a week, which is expensive. which is a good deal. I used to live off it for a week, which is expensive. But, you know, and I remember we walked in and like, I'd been out of uni a year and at drama school they taught us to do like half an hour of warmups and wear your theater

blacks and really like, really give yourself to the process and be real creative. And I'd been out a year, Adrian had been out two years, Zach had been out a year. And I'd been out a year, Adrian had been out two years, Zach had been out a year, and you came in minutes out of drama school, ready to fucking find the truth. And we were like, oh, we're not warming up. That's what I remember. Well, fuck that.

And I remember like this real, I have this vision of you at Carlton Library, just this, oh, like, oh, this is good. I was just, oh. All right. And also, can I talk about this day? I remember this day as well, right? Because the other thing I remember, there's three things I remember from this day.

The second being is I ate very badly and everyone was kind of on board with that. And so the people I hung out with like, we were recording across the road, we were practicing across the road from a La Pocketa, the original La Poceta. And I was just like, let's all go to La Poceta. And you're like, oh, I'm not eating there. That's fucked. And I went, oh, is it? But I think you shifted my life fundamentally from that day because had you not stopped

me, I would be having pizza lunches at La Poqueta like it was nothing for the rest of my fucking life. And to be fair, I wasn't saying that because I was like, oh, I only eat good food or I ate just as filthily, but just being Italian. Yeah, I think it was the Italianness of La Poqueta. What I would have done, I would have walked across the road and had a small meat lover's pizza forvers pizza for lunch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was always the devil to me growing up La Poqueta was kind of like sometimes we'd go there with the with the family, but it was the It's like, you know

Saying you want a hamburger and going to McDonald. You don't you know, you go to McDonald because you want McDonald You don't, you go to McDonald because you want McDonald. Not because you want a hamburger, you want a hamburger. You go to your classy place. You go to your Betty's Burgers. You know, somewhere classy. You know, so anyway, no judgment, not too much judgment. On Betty's burgers? No, on La Poqueta, you know.

No, but I was just a really, I remember that moment really clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of going, oh. No, I'm not mad or anything, but just be like, oh. Yeah, because there was a couple of libraries we frequented. Carlton was the most frequent, followed by, not Brunswick, Fitzroy, the one just off Brunswick Street. Collingwood.

And then Collingwood, yeah, Collingwood was a sometimes library. Those other two were the biggest ones. We would just go into these rooms and scream for three hours. Yeah, we really would. But I remember the first day of that rehearsal, the third thing I remember of that day is the La Pocata, I remember the youth, like, oh, we're would but I remember the first day that rehearsal the third thing I remember that day is the lap or Ketter I remember the you like oh, we're not warming up Yeah, and then I also remember going okay. What ideas do we have yeah and nothing coming out And going oh fuck. How do you write comedy?

How do you do this and was like a fool the first true in my life blank page? Yeah, you know that thing that writers talk about, the daunting blank page? Oh yeah. That was the first day I really... We all just went, oh. Oh no. Yeah. I don't like, cause I don't know if I remember the very, very first one.

The thing I remember is that it was rare that all of us were in the room. Yeah. So like, cause we all had jobs and we all had fucking other shit we were trying to do. So it was often like three, maybe four, cause you know, in the room, no, Sam was gone. He was in India. He was in a trip. Sam was in India. Sam was in India and he left us with a folder, this massive binder full of sketch ideas.

And we read through them and all of us were like, I don't know how to do this. It was just hard without the person who wrote them in the room. And because again, we weren't coming at it with a writer's mind, with a performer's mind. It was kind of like just get an idea up, play with it. Yeah, because in my head at least, I can't write, let's just act until something feels like we wrote it. Until something comes, yeah. And I remember the first, I always remember this, this will live with me forever. It's something I'll see when I die, this moment, you know, like it's such a clear moment for

me. But it was the first like big breakthrough where I felt like we had a big breakthrough, and it was just me, you and Zach, that day. And it was in Carlton Library. And I was still working at Sovereign Hill at the time, living in North Melbourne, West Melbourne. I forget in the early days when it was, but there was one day where I was in Ballarat

visiting my partner, Annie, who still was at the uni. And I was like, do you want a lift? Because we were going and I picked you up in full prospect gear. Yeah. And drove you back. Yeah, yeah, who still was at the uni. And I was like, do you want a lift? Because we were going and I picked you up in full prospect gear. Yeah. And drove you back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sick. And so yeah, I was commuting and shit.

And so sometimes I'd stay at old uni friends' houses. And then I had this experience with someone who was showing me their Xbox 360 and that had a Kinect on it and they were like check this shit out man the fucking voice stuff is crazy now like you can tell it to do stuff and he just started going like he just went Xbox games and it just wouldn't work it's just wouldn't work and we just couldn't stop lying just kept trying it just was this little moment. That's really funny.

I wrote that down in my little book. And then bought that to the group. And we tried it. We're trying it. And it was like me sitting down trying to make the Xbox work. And it just wasn't. It was nothing. it was nothing. It was nothing.

It just did not click. And we sat down and we're like, ah, I don't know. And then Zach went, have you read about how voice activation with the Scottish accent does not work? Because even though it's English, it just cannot recognize the Scottish accent because of how full on the Scottish accent is. And then I remember very clearly all of us going, oh, and then Zach and I switched roles. He started doing it in a Scottish accent and almost beat for beat what ended up becoming

the Xbox sketch we just kind of went through. Yeah. With like you chucking in ideas, Zach and I back and forthing it. We were just like, Jesus Christ, write this the fuck down. And we got it down. It's a sketch. And it really felt like genuine magic. Like it was like, holy shit.

And we were like, this is fucking, and then we went to lunch, and we were just all on this fucking high, and then we came back in, we were like, what's next? And then there was just nothing. Sat in silence for like four hours. Yeah. Nothing! Which has become us. Oh no!

Which never changed. Never changes. If you, your brain is good for about four hours creatively and then your afternoon is fucked. I think but that's the difference now is that we embrace how bad it is after lunch and sometimes- And value the good time as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yes, I remember that. I remember that very, very clearly as well. Yeah.

But very slowly, I remember just from the start going, we're actually in trouble here because we actually have no fucking ideas. And this is going to be horrible. And then very slowly just kind of started to get something together that looked like a show. Do you remember why it was called what it was called? And well, first of all, what it was called? I mean, my auntie Donna took forever and I can't think of a name we couldn't like which started a long journey of us never being able to agree on the name for anything.

Yeah yeah. But Aunty Donna was kind of just like you well Aunty Donna started as Adrian and I wrote a play called Aunty Donna's First Hand Job because there was a the working title of Dark Knight was called Rory's first kiss yeah and that's literally where it came from and I just I don't and so it was in the ether I just remember I just thought I was the funny one of the funniest collection of words I just ever heard in my life and so and then over time we all these other names got thrown around but the one you just kind of kept saying in the group chat I like Aunty Donna

You just kept kind of just I like Aunty Donna I don't know like it's like do you want it this or this or this? I like Aunty Donna and then it was like yeah And that you kind of just stuck her and then it got to like genuine deadline to be in the program Yeah, oh fuck. It's that yeah. It was two reasons. It was like I loved that It wasn't funny because Monty Python wasn't funny and it had the same amount of syllables as Monty Python. Those were just the two big things for me because I was-

It was actually both your fault. The name of the show as well is- The name of the show is my fault as well because it was called Aunty Donna in Pantsuits and at the time I just really liked Letterman and Letterman just had this running gag about Hillary Clinton wearing pantsuits and so it was just eating. And I was also I think in my memory I have like the group chat and you just go in pantsuits and I'm like alright. Yeah. Yeah.

And that was the end of it and we had this whole aesthetic that your brother Scott designed our poster. Yeah. And we had this whole aesthetic that you would never see Auntie Donna. Yes. We had this whole idea that you would only ever see a female stiletto boot. Yeah, that was our sort of logo and our thing. You would never see us.

It was all Auntie. It was all like, it was kind of everything that we saw that we disliked. We hated photos of comedians where they were just going like, you know, they had their hand, this weird like trying to look earnest and candid. But funny. Yeah, but also a bit funny and cheeky. We fucking hated that, so we were like, no photos. And, uh, ever.

Ever, like just fuck that. And we wanted to like stand out, so we always did like, or we tried to do like an interesting poster shape, which ended up, you know, it's kind of fucking us a bit. Um, yeah. And it was like interesting artwork. And we were at the time we got was 11 o'clock at night. So the idea of doing that now makes me want to die.

But 11, so we would get off stage at midnight. This is when at the comedy festival show start at six and are done by like nine thirty. Eleven o'clock at night, every night. Wild. But it was like kind of that started the vibe of what we were. It would have been a very different show at seven o'clock I think. You know, I think it would have been a completely different vibe and it would have felt like it, we, I think we were, it's one of the sort of, you know, a nice thing to think about is that, because I remember the first comedy festival show I ever saw that I remember had an impact on me was this, it was like a Sydney improv sketch group that when I bought the ticket, the lady at the booth was like, if you like

Futurama you'll like this. It was like this weird sci-fi sketch show and I fucking loved it because it was late, it was like 10 o'clock and it was really naughty and I remember seeing it afterwards of realizing that that show had, I believe, I know that it had Stine Raskopoulos, it had Suzy Youssef, I'm pretty sure it had Michael Hing, it had all these comedians who have ended up becoming colleagues of ours and having great careers. But I remember thinking, this is before I was doing acting and this was before I was doing performing, before I ever even thought of doing comedy. But I remember seeing that and going, it would be cool to be a part of something like that,

to give someone the experience that I had, which is just like this secret, weird, in some dark fucking corner of Melbourne during the festival. It's fun talking about that, right? I'll pivot very briefly about visions before they happen, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you have these visions of a thing, and I don't know if it's like, if it's by seeing it you move naturally in that direction,

but there's been, I have one very vivid memory of a vision I had. Yeah. In 2011, I went for the first time in my life overseas with my mate Adina to America, first time I'd ever been overseas. And we flew to, Donna was still doing those conversations that we were talking about, just like if we did it, we'd do this. But it wasn't even, we hadn't committed to doing comedy festival or anything.

And we flew to Boston and I remember us going to the hotel and falling asleep and then wake up the next morning with jet lag at like 5am and then just walking the streets of Boston. I walked past and I pulled up at a Starbucks and sat down and I remember thinking, it'll be cool one day, imagine one day if my comedy group comes here and performs and I'm here for work. That would be the coolest thing ever. And then like we were then 20 I'm gonna say 17. We went to the first time we ever performed in Boston. We performed at like PAX and I remember driving past and I saw the fucking Starbucks and I was like fucking hell. Like Like I was sitting there and it happened.

And it's just like, sometimes you have those visions. It's hard to know if it's just coincidence or whatever. The visions, anyway. I was gonna say quickly, if we can, cause I don't think I'll fully be able to, but maybe with the power of both of us, we'll be able to just go through the sketches in that first show.

Oh yeah, I can do that. Like, so I remember it opened with Trendy Cafe. Can I talk about Trendy Cafe? Please. So we took months and months and months to write like a bunch of sketches. And then whether you like him or not now, Cleese was really important to me because I was like, I don't know how to write comedy at all. And then Adrian said this, he went to Oxbridge

and did this, he was a scientist. So he broke down the way he became creative scientifically. And there's this video online about how he created, and it was really important to me in how I became someone who could write. And he talks about being around the idea of being creative. The longer you're there, the stronger the muscle kind of becomes.

And then the more you start to see things go, that could be funny. Just being in that mind frame is really important. So once a month of me trying to figure out how to write and being no good at it. And then, like a few weeks before we started, I just walked in and said,

I had an idea that we go to a trendy, you go into a trendy, you go into a trendy cafe and they just dance at you. And we, and we got, was at your house, you were sleeping, you were sharing a house with your friend who ran a nightclub in North Melbourne. Yes. And you, and we were like, oh, let's just do it. We put music on and made it like in genuinely 30 seconds and it became the opener for the show.

Yeah. Sorry, I just want to talk about that. No, and we had like, we also had audio visual. It was a, the show was performed in a 50 seater on the first room, the back row was taken out, so it was 40 seats because there was a leak. It used to be a strip club that was above pub. And-

So, Trendy Cafe. Yeah, we had Trendy Cafe. When we had a projector, I just think that that's important as well. We had a projector set up on a bunch of books to go on the screen, which also took a seat out. I can't remember what was on there at the very, very start. But Trendy Cafe opened the show.

Let me just say one more thing before we run into it as well. We worked really, really hard. We rehearsed it a lot. And I remember getting, we were at Richmond meeting room. I remember we rehearsed like our last rehearsal before we went and did the show. And I remember sitting at a pub, I think we were going through the books afterwards or something, and I don't know who was there, but I remember thinking

wholeheartedly, I've never worked on anything as hard as this show in my life. I remember thinking, I have nothing left to give this, and genuinely, you have an inkling now if something's good or bad now because you've been doing it long enough but sitting there going I have no idea whether this is at all good but I know because we didn't even practice it man we didn't show it to anyone no we did it in a private room and then presented it yeah and I have no idea if this works at all.

The craziest thing to me and I still it doesn't make sense that it was me, but I remember being, tell me if I'm wrong, but I remember being the only one on the opening night that just wasn't nervous. Yeah, you're funny. You're funny, because you, the other week, we were doing test shows for Drem into secret audience, and they're like to like 60 year old people who are on,

like it's not our fan base. We deliberately do these secret test shows to fan bases who do not like us or would not like us. And so we know in those circumstances, if something goes well, then it really works because it's not a fan. And so you, before that show the other day was like, you were very nervous. Yeah. You're like, oh fuck it.

And then as soon as we got on stage, you just lost your fucking mind and were like a million percent locked in and like to this bit. I didn't even know if it was in the Shawadie ball, but you're like, Zach was being like a dad reading stories and you're like, daddy bedtime daddy. And there's like a room of like 20 60 year old people having the worst night of their life watching this show go horribly and you go oh daddy daddy like no no in a bit no snow self-censoring just fully in it I was like you're so nervous about that you've fully left your body

laughing about that last night I really just it's a fucking roll of the dice with me. It was so funny to me. Sometimes. But I just remember fully before that first show, I was being like, I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Kiss a fire, be fucking sick. Yeah, I was crippled. And also, I remember we went out flyering to try and convince people to come to the show.

Yeah. So we were out from like six o'clock at night. Yeah. And you had a little chair. Yeah, I thought it was like you need a gimmick. Yeah, I had a little chair so you'd sit on the little chair and I was like, this is really fucking cool because I'd always, I'd been to the Comedy Festival the year before and loved the whole scene, how cool it made Melbourne feel. And then we were in it and we were wearing our suits around. Yeah. And I remember I won't name the member of the group but someone said like oh girls love men in suits everyone thinks we're so hot it's like it's porn you know because they're handsome men in suits these little boys walking

around in black suits with a black tie. Mine was the same one I wore to my grandfather's funeral because I didn't have money to afford more than one black suit. Yeah, well, I can tell you about Adrian. I hope Adrian doesn't mind me saying this, but he worked at a suit store and I went in and he heavily discounted me. Heavily discounted me. He jokingly said, I remember he put it all through like a suit and shirts and ties and

socks and belts and he's like, that'll be three dollars thanks. I think he charged me more than that, but that'll be three dollars thanks. Like it out. But I'm... So, open with a... Trendy cafe. Trendy cafe, which if you don't know is just a sketch where a man goes into a cafe and everyone's dancing rather than serving coffee.

Three Wise Men. Which I still love. Which is a joke about, it's an Australian as joke, which is the three wise men come to Jesus and they're like, we've got gold frankincense and mervehues, which is a cricket player. And then the Channel 9 sports theme would play. It's good. And I still love that.

I just still think that's such a funny joke to describe, because, you know, they would describe gold and all its, you know, wonderful assets and why it's rare and the same with frankincense and then when it came to Merv Hughes, just about how he's a ripper cricketer. You've always loved that. You don't even like cricket. No, it's just more though, but I grew up, one of my uncles looked like Merv Hughes. And so, Merv Hughes was just a very big reference point for me. I just thought it was really funny. I don't remember from there.

All right. So I remember some sketches, but the order alludes me. I remember some of the rare ones. I think Well You Could might have been next. Well You Could was a great one. It's Adrian and I was just a... Yeah, a list sketch, which we were referred to as a list sketch where... It was on board and Adrian would go, well you could have a, put a pasta necklace thing. And he forgot the lines on the very first night.

And just said some pretty crook shit. It is, it is bad. I remember also this night, my cousin Steph was on her hens night and my mum was there so they came at the end of the night to watch this and the look of disappointment on my mother's face like just midnight and just so like I don't know if the first night went well or bad, I think it went okay. And just the look of disappointment on my mother's face yeah I was like okay we fucked it I remember after the first night thinking okay we fucked it yeah well cuz there was well you could there was also my balls yeah

my balls yeah they're misdirectioned yes a couple of what was that one called? you know what I'd like to... Naughty Sketch. Naughty? You know what I'd like to... Naughty Sketch. Naughty Sketch. You know what I'd like to do. That's on YouTube. I took over Adrian when Adrian left the group and Broden and I did that one. You became Adrian.

But then there was some weird... GPS. GPS. We were the first people that I knew to do the screen saver thing because we had the screen and was everyone cheering for it to hit the corner. Yep. We had DV. Yeah, it was because we had the projector. The DVD logo would go around and then we'd be like, oh, waiting for it to hit the corner. Yep, we had DV. Yeah, it was because we had the projector. The DVD logo would go around and then we'd be like, oh, waiting for it to hit the corner.

And then it would and then we'd have a big dance party. The Xbox was obviously in it. Xbox was there. Found Out I'm Gay was in it. Maybe that was earlier than I think. Yeah, I remember that what we said afterwards was that that show, because we got nominated for a Golden Gibow award Which is best independent production which I would argue is the reason we got we got one review It was four stars in the Herald Sun. Yeah, I want to talk about that. Oh, yeah

Well, I remember so I was driving it. We had a reviewer come in I think I don't know why we had no producer or anything and we were like, well, hopefully someone will come in Well, we just didn't think reviews would come. And then I was driving in, it was a Monday because we were going in to see Idiot's Events on our day off and I was driving, I was turning off Hottel Street from the Eastern Freeway and you rang me and I said, hey mate, I'm just driving. And you were like, oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I'm calling from the group who got four stars. And I was like, holy fuck.

And like, well, elated feeling, truly elated. It was sick. It was just like, you know, fuck. Yeah. Just, and when it felt like a starred review in the paper, the very last sort of couple of years where that truly felt like it meant something. Yeah. Well, we wanted approval and we got it.

Yeah. And then I spent the next day, when I had the day off, fucking I went to my brother's office and printed out fucking four stars on a little quote and went around and stapled them to all our fucking posters that were around and shit like it was so cool. Yeah. And because I remember I was just checking the fucking, you know, checking the Herald Sun website. Jim Shembri.

Jim Shembri. Thank you, Jim. Great fucking, that was you. It was that review and getting nominated for the Golden Gibbo that really made us go, oh, hey, there's something here, rather than this be a side hustle. Yeah, and when we got nominated for that award, we famously said, who's that?

Oh yeah, what's that? What's the Golden Gibbo? I had no idea. I had to go outside of the Hi-Fi bar at the time now, Max Watts. It might not have been Jim Shembury. It might have been someone else. Oh no, it wasn't Jim Shembury.

It was Andrew Someone. Fuck, I wish I remember. Look it up. I'm trying to look it up Shambri. It was Andrew someone. Fuck, I wish I remember. Look it up. I'm trying to look it up now. I can't find pantsuits review, but I just remember, well, the two things I genuinely remember is we were like, fuck, we got four stars

and then we got nominated for an award. A show that I initially didn't know if it was good at all has now been nominated for an award. And then that I initially didn't know if it was good at all has now been nominated for an award. And then someone was like, hey, and keep an eye out for the best newcomer because you're probably going to get nodded for that as well. And then we didn't and I was like, well, we fucking suck. We're fucking failures. And then we lost the giveaways. How quickly my ego just fucking ballooned as soon as I was like, well, we're now incredible. Well, yeah, it was, well, people were, you know, blowing a bit of smoke up our ass and

being like, yeah, that's going to happen for you. And so then, yeah, it was a, but you learn those, I mean, still learning those fucking lessons, but you learn those lessons about not to, I don't know, what am I trying to say here? It's, it's the- Then they're kind of nice, but they, the good ones and the bad ones are kind of irrelevant to whatever, like your own destiny, I think. Yeah, and it's just got to be about the work.

It's got to be about your own creative satisfaction and all that other stuff. Unless it like, you know, especially now, like in my opinion, especially in Australia where all of our creative industries are very, very small, awards don't mean fucking shit in terms of how they can help your career, right? Because at least still, in the UK, in America, if you win an Oscar or you win a Tony or you win a fucking Emmy or a Golden Globe or whatever,

or a BAFTA or shit, it can do something. Yeah. It can like, you know, you win best director or best picture at the fucking Oscars. Yeah. You are gonna be having phone calls the next day about what's your next project, what do you want to do?

You don't really have that here. No. There's not that support kind of network. I think like if you do really well at like a comedy festival or something here, it can help you a little bit, but there's a hard ceiling to it. And so you have to kind of decide whether you're going to be someone, because the judges of these awards are just people and they have a taste.

And if you start to build your life to that, you can maybe make a career, but your ceiling is much lower. Yeah, absolutely. As opposed to like, I've heard someone, a comedian at this festival, Melbourne now, who's very big online, was told by his management he needed to do the full run to legitimise them.

And I thought, don't do that because you could sell 2,000 tickets at this festival or you could just become, you could do, make, yeah, it's uh... Well, because I don't think it does anymore. I think that was true of the 90s, you know, and like the early noughties and stuff, but now it's just a completely different fucking game. Yeah, and It's it's we get here. Yeah, how did we get? But it's 13 years ago it's funny how much remember because I I remember riding the roller coaster of that show and Fucking it really locking me and Zach said I remember famously. He's individual, he said, we've had a really cool big breakthrough here but I think it's gonna take a lot longer to really make it. Yeah. And he was right.

And we famously wrote two shows in our first year, which nobody does. No. And is an insane thing. Shouldn't have. Well, yeah, I guess, but I loved that second show. Yes, yes. We were firing at that point, but also working through, every time you make something, you're learning so many lessons. Yeah. I think, as crazy as it was, I think it was the right move for us because it made us, it genuinely made us just go, it gave us something

to keep doing. Yeah. Because if we didn't, we just would have sat around until like Fringe Festival and then maybe done the show again or whatever, you know. Like it was the thing that, the second thing that really solidified us becoming what we ended up becoming was just a bunch of fucking cunts and you don't know what the fuck they're doing. And that is the story of our first show.

But 13 years ago, so if Aunty Donna was a kid, they'd now be a precocious 13 year old. Yeah. Oh, Pizza Man was in the first show. Pizza Man was in the first show. And Tiny Chair. Tiny, I loved Tiny Chair. I really did love Tiny Chair. Do you know what I was thinking about Tiny Chair? Because Tiny Chair was you were just in...

It was a thing that I liked about you as a performer is... And I still love about you as a performer is how funny you can be without anything. Like you just moving or dancing or voicing is just so fucking funny. And you just leaned over on a chair or leaned over on a table and... Oh, oh! Like and it kind of gave way from under you and you're... Oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh funny and then I can get in my head about it and I can go nah nah nah nah nah don't do it and you are exceptional at not only for yourself but with other people going no that is a thing that is a thing and and push it and believe in it and believe in in in what you're doing because you can genuinely

just get up and move around and people will laugh and like the majority of the world can't do that. Like you literally just do. Stop, I'm blushing. But it's true. That's very kind of you. And Zach is the same as well. I remember the first time I saw Zach. There he is. Just get something out of nothing in a play we did together where he just had to walk into a room and look around and it took like three minutes. And there's like, that's a very talented people, both of you. Anyway. As are you. No, you don't need to.

Hey, five stars in the age for your first ever solo show. You should be very proud. Yeah, I'm next generation talent. But that is all to say, happy Comedy Festival, Mark and Zach. And Broden. Broden and Zach both of course have shows. I don't know if you're doing them. This is coming out at the end of Comedy Festival. But are you taking it? Is this the. I know it's a basketball.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, you can go see that if you want. You can go see Zach as well. Zach's doing a show. You can go see Mark at the shops. I'm doing shit. You know, I'm- Drem. Drem.

I'll be in Drem. You know, I'm doing stuff. Hey, maybe check online. Maybe some stuff I'm doing will be online soon. Oh, that show. Yeah. Sick. That thing.

But check it all out. We really are in our post-Moon Shape pool, Radiohead era. Do you think Benz is a good album? On Double J at the moment, they're highlighting Benz is a good album. On Double J at the moment they're highlighting Benz. Are they doing all the B-sides? Because it's the 20th, 30th? Well yeah, Double J is going, here's a classic album from 20 years ago. Yeah. And so, you know, fake plastic trees.

Yeah, they made a little Spotify playlist of all the B-sides, which are, I mean, all Radiohead B-sides, exceptional. And the Benz B-sides in particular. You got Bishop's Robes. Do you know as well, it's interesting, when people look back at Radiohead now, I'm at this, when Benz comes out, I'm six. When Jigsaw, when In Rainbows comes out in 2007, I'm like an adult now, I'm 18, and I'm

taking in, it is contemporary, like not contemporary, but it's modern music as opposed to stuff that I missed when it came out. So I think of In Rainbows very differently to their whole catalogue. But people consider it like second or first as their album. Oh, it's a... People love that album. It's a stunning, very accessible album after they did a bunch of weirdo shit that split the fan base in Rainbows. Very good. But it sounds different to their other stuff as well.

Sounds different. It's very ethereal. And like acoustic-y, not acoustic but it feels in a room. I don't know. The drums are different is what I mean to say. How did we get here? I don't know. I don't know. Thank you for letting us do a different weird thing this week. We'll see you next week for more bullshit thanks Zach thank you Zach thank you Mark and thank you Lindsay for that great music at the start we'll see you all you've been listening to the Auntie Donna podcast thanks for joining us for another RIP episode brought to you by Auntie Donna Club.com see you next week!