The Story of Our First Comedy Festival Show

Today,

in 2013,

I did the vulnerability.

Video, like,

obtain Wi-Fi in Mazuin with local con ATNT Fiber with Al-Fi, ATNT, connecting the chambia.

ATNT Fiber has limited the queer service that cover Wi-Fi extended ATNT with carbon distinction.

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 Auntie Donna Patreon, the Donna Club.

Go to patreon.com forward slash Auntie 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.

You're listening to the Auntie Donna Podcast.

The greatest fucking podcast in the world.

Bro,

sometimes a guest.

We hope you enjoyed the motherfucking podcast.

G'day, folks, and welcome to the Auntie Donna Broadcast.

It is a broadcast.

Brought to you by Mark.

Next time, consider Mark.

We're there.

For your next function,

why not choose Mark?

Yeah, I can come around and can um 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 yes zach is on vocal rest because he's doing a play

at the comedy festival with his friend Alexei Toliopoulos 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?

Ruane or Dolioplus.

Well, I'm going to have to go with Zach.

All right.

Because I've...

Anyway, well, he's here, but Zach is just on vocal rest today.

It's just you and I talking today, Mark.

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, who's run viewers' choice before?

MTV?

Hitler.

Hitler had a viewer's choice.

Well, he won in Germany in 1990.

I think that was just an election, like a player.

He won an election election.

That's a good point.

But

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 I'm saying.

sluts like that i just you know i don't i like a nostalgia i just don't you know but what but what well i like nostalgia but i'm not a nostalgia slut what is what makes you a nostalgia dirty little slut for nostalgia so what does that entail um 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.

Hits just in that spot.

He will come.

And that might mean spoof.

It doesn't have to mean spoof.

No, 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.

But you can't help it.

It's 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

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.

Yeah.

And now he's nodding, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just, you know, I lose confidence very quickly.

Yeah, but you spoof even quicker.

Oh, you have no idea how quick.

Show me.

I'm, it already happened.

Roden.

Wow.

Um,

but you want to talk about some bullshit?

Well, 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 Auntie 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 Auntie Donna was in a Elizabethan sonnet, wasn't it?

I believe so.

But we started doing it in 2011.

2011.

Well, did we?

Folks, this episode, and maybe put some like blue

under this, Lindsay.

I know, we absolutely did 2011.

Come back to that.

This episode, folks, we will title The Story.

Well, 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 trended.

And I remembered being in this studio last time and it was fucking freezing.

Yes.

And so I went, I'm just going to 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 Jacintha Lee.

And

we want to talk about the first Auntie Donna show.

Oh, I'm Mark.

Sorry.

Jacintha.

You gotta turn that shit off.

Turn that shit off.

So

I believe we did our first live show in 2012, 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 sketch 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 yeah and do you remember

the first few rehearsals i remember uh 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 were, yes.

You also went into uni a year earlier than that.

That's mostly it, is I started a year earlier.

Big part 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.

You're 37 and I'm 36.

Yeah, it's crazy.

But I remember getting a little Facebook message about wanting to start something.

Can't remember if it was from you or was that.

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 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, Mark.

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?

Talk me through what you thought.

I thought you were saying, do you think we, Auntie 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 that Monty Python are the Beatles of speech.

No, No, we're not the Beatles of anything.

Make that really clear.

We're more the wings

of Sketch Company.

In that half of us.

In that we've got some fucking hits that you're like, that's as good as Monty Python.

But then the rest of...

I would say there's some stuff that we've done that's like

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 have to 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.

Yeah, well, because humans slowly grow.

Well, you reckon like four foot?

I have no idea.

I'd need to get like a historian in, which we can do.

We can get

go to Melbourne Union and get a historian ask California.

They could do whatever the fuck we want with the Beatles to sketch comedy.

No, I don't feel comfortable saying that, really.

Well, you should pick your words.

We've only 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 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,

I was like, oh, we should try that.

And so I messaged Zach, who was someone who I respected greatly as far as a comedic performer.

And I said, yeah, you've been talking about doing it.

Let's try and start one.

And he said, well, the first person I recruit is Sam Lingham.

the writer.

He wants to be a writer.

He doesn't want to 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.

The funniest guy I knew.

And then he was like, but we've got to 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 yeah and he he was his 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.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As opposed to saying.

Yeah, I was expecting it.

And that's very kind of me.

You're the Beatles of that year level.

just me on my own.

Yeah, I was a full uh Lennon McCartney.

Uh, so, yes, we started the group, right, and then we booked in for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, yes,

and we said,

Let's just we're we're fought, we paid the Regio, 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 uh, 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 you all suck losers.

You pack of shit losers.

This is 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 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 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.

It was a bad school.

It wasn't.

It was not 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've got to figure this out.

Yeah, I got to figure this out.

And then there's the people that go, but yeah, but not me.

That's true for everyone in this room, but not me.

And those are the ones that fail the quickest.

They're 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, you know, global warming is not real.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

As opposed to the people who go

help,

but they still, we all die at the same time.

That actually is a good, yeah.

And so I would say that we were all ones that went, yeah, fuck.

All right, got it.

Not me.

Not me.

And we were right.

We were those few, we're those very 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

ensuing.

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 by design.

I think that's it'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.

We did, remember we did very early demos at Joe Kosky'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

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're 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 Idiots of Ants

yeah Facebook in Real Life.

Yeah, yeah.

That was their video.

Yes, it was.

They may have been one of the first.

Because we were kind of starting before videos

online were like a big deal, really.

Yeah.

Like there was Sketch, I guess, if you call it Tim and Eric's sketch.

Yeah.

But there wasn't...

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 as 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 make

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 people that were in their 20s in 2011, all of us were pretty fucking offline.

Oh, you're right.

Sorry.

I think you think We were hot.

We were all fucking offline.

No, we were all very sexy.

Yeah, yeah.

We were very offline.

Yeah.

Do you know 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 on 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 that.

You did 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 Ben Jensen and I have a very bad memory you

don't fuck you are talking 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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

And 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 because I remember.

Do you think, is there any world where you would do that?

Well, let's go to an ad break.

This is going to 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 one?

Is there a who would I ring?

To find that out.

If you put up an article, like posted an article in a comment area about why The Simpsons and Gottenbad.

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's that worries me.

There's one story I've told about Zach that I remember.

Go on.

I've already told this.

It may have only been on the paper.

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 doll.

Yeah, Munt, you were on the government 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 girl.

Yeah, yeah.

You lied to the government.

You still collect the name.

Yeah, yeah, you say you're a union yeah yeah I've got it I've found a loophole yeah

it's good it's a bit of pocket money

I remember I was like

you know but I like you know was was was was pretty good at prioritizing and saving so I had like a little bit of savings I think it was like fuck how much

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 and it would see me through to Friday.

Oh man, I remember having 50 bucks going to the grocery store 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, yeah, but like inflations obviously happen, but even so.

I know.

Say it's four.

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.

I know you're not.

You're not including food in your life.

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.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it was $80 a week.

Was it like a house of four people and it's shape and it was bad?

No, it was 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?

It was.

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.

Right?

Yeah.

But I remember it being

160 a fortnight is insane.

What does that make it

320 a month?

Yeah, maybe that's 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, um, anyway, also, the hour, the contact hours at our uni, yeah, 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 on my fucking life.

i'd work like two days a week at the g mcg yeah

there's 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

yeah it was so like and i we we all walked out with the what it did do i walked out and went fucking let's do this yeah with every bit of energy i had yeah yeah yeah yeah it was sick but um just quickly uh 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.

I was a bit of an encyclopedia.

Not so much anymore.

I've forgotten it.

Because I don't really give a fucking

once Disney bought them.

Fucking.

But

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.

Or like a smaller cinema, sure.

A 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?

And it made me laugh so much.

It really, it really got.

I don't think Zach loves when I tell that story because

it makes it seem like a funny thing.

But it was just funny.

Zach was very much.

I remember getting to uni and I had funny friends at high school.

I had funny friends in the world

and people I thought they're pretty funny.

But it was the first time I met someone in my and I was like, he's really, really funny.

Just a different breed of funny.

Really sharp, very smart man.

Yeah.

And yeah, I remember.

Yeah, Zach was very funny very quickly yeah yeah and uh

so uh

flash forward we finished we all agree to do it for a year agree we book in to do the melbourne comedy festival yes we didn't know if we could really write comedy we'd never really done much writing at all no and um i remember what the 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.

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 warm-ups 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 you came in minutes out of drama school, ready to fucking find the truth.

And we were like, oh, we're not warming up.

Like, that's what I remember.

Like, well, fuck that.

And I remember like this real, I have this vision of you at Carlton Library, just this, oh, like, oh, it's just going,

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 was, 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 the road.

We were practicing across the road from a La Porqueta, the original La Porqueta.

And I was just like, let's all go to La Porqueta.

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 Porqueta like it was nothing for the rest of my fucking life.

And to be fair, I wasn't saying that because I was like, like, oh, I only eat good food or I ate just as filthily, but just being Italian.

Yeah, I think it was

the Italian-ness of La Pulchetto.

What I would have done, I would have walked across the road and had a small

meat lover's pizza for lunch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was always the devil to me growing up, La Pulchetto.

It was kind of like, sometimes we'd go there 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 go to McDonald because you want McDonald.

Not because you want a hamburger.

You want a hamburger.

You go, you're a classy place.

Yeah.

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, non-La Poqueta, you know.

No, but I was just a really, I I remember that moment really clearly of going,

oh.

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?

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 they rehearsed, the third thing I remember of that day is the La Poquette.

I remember the you,

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 it 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 encountered.

We all just went, oh,

oh no.

Yeah.

I don't like, because 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're trying to do.

So it was often like three,

maybe four, because, you know, in the room, no, Sam was gone.

He was in India.

He was in.

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, well, I don't know what to

do.

I don't know how to do this.

It was just hard without the person who wrote them in the room, right?

You know?

And because, again, we weren't coming at it from

a writer's mind.

No.

With a performer's mind.

It was kind of like, just get an idea up, play with it.

Yeah, because we couldn't, in my head, at least was like, 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.

Yeah.

But it was the, I, it was the first like

big breakthrough where I felt like we had a big breakthrough, right?

And it was just me, you and Zach that day.

Um,

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 when 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 to lift?

Because we're all going to think.

And I picked you up in full prospector gear.

Yeah.

And drove you back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was sick.

And so, yeah, I was like, 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 like 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.

Yeah, 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 just wouldn't work.

And we just couldn't stop lie.

He just kept trying.

And just was this little moment.

I was like, that's really funny.

Wrote that down in my little book.

And then bought that to

the group.

And we tried it.

And 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 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.

And we were just like, Jesus Christ, write this the fuck down.

And we got it down.

This is a sketch.

And it really felt like

genuine magic like it was like holy shit and we were like this is and then we went to lunch and we were just all on this fucking high and then we came back in we're like what's next and then

sat in silence for like four hours

yeah nothing which is becoming oh no which never changed never changes if you you your brain is good for about four hours creatively and then your afternoon is fast yeah i think but that's the difference now is that we embrace how bad it is after lunch and and sometimes value the good times yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely um but yes i remember that i remember that um very very clearly as well like yeah and just 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, called, what it was called?

Well, first of all, what it was called?

I mean, obviously.

Arnie Donna took forever and we're like, oh, 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 Arnie Donna was kind of just like, well, Arnie Donna

started as

Adrian and I wrote a play called Arnie 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 remembered, I just thought that was the funny, one of the funniest collection of words I just ever heard in my life.

And so, and then over time, all these other names got thrown around.

But the one you just kind of kept saying in the group channel, I like Auntie Donna.

You just kept kind of just, I like Auntie Donna.

I don't know.

Like, it's like, well, do you want this or this or this?

And you're like, I like Auntie Donna.

And then it was like, yeah.

And then it 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 are 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 Auntie 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 idiot.

And I was also, I think, in my memory, I have like the group chat and just go in pantsuits and i'm going all right 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 donor yes we had this whole idea that you would only ever see a female stiletto boot yeah it was that was our sort of logo and our thing and you'd never see us it was all anti it was all like it was it was kind of uh everything that we saw that we disliked like we hated photos of comedians where they were just going like,

like, you know, they had their hand, this weird, like, trying to look earnest and candid, but funny.

But it's, yeah, but also a bit funny and cheeky.

We fucking hated that.

So we're like, no photos and 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, kind of fucking us a bit.

Yeah, and it was like interesting artwork.

And we 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 the comedy festival shows start at 6 and are done by like 9.30.

11 o'clock at night every night.

Wild.

But it was like kind of

that started.

the vibe of what we were.

That would have been a very different show at seven o'clock, I think.

You know, I think it would have been been yeah a completely different vibe and it would have felt like it we uh uh i think we were one of the sort of you know the

a nice thing to think about is that um because i remember the first comedy festival show uh i ever saw that i remember had an impact on me was this uh it was like a sydney improv sketch group um that uh when i bought the ticket the the the lady at the booth was like it's if you like futurama you'll like this it was like this weird like yeah sci-fi sketch show um and i fucking loved it because it was late it was like 10 o'clock and it was really naughty and uh i remember seeing it afterwards of uh realizing that that show had um I believe, I know that it had Steen Roskopoulos, it had Susie Youssef, I'm pretty sure it had Michael Hing, you know, had all these comedians who, you know, have ended up

becoming colleagues of ours and having great careers.

But I remember thinking, this this is before I was doing acting and this was before I was doing performing, before I, you know, 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.

Fun talking about that.

I'll...

pivot very briefly.

It's about visions before they happen, right?

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 going to the hotel and falling asleep and then waking up the next morning with jet lag at like 5 a.m.

and then just walking the streets of Boston.

And

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.

Fuck.

And then, like, we were then 20, I'm going to say 17.

Yeah.

We went to, the first time we ever performed in Boston, we performed at like PAX.

Yeah.

And I remember driving past and I saw the fucking Starbucks.

And I was like, fucking hell.

Like, I was sitting there and it happened.

That's, and it's just like, sometimes you have those visions.

It's hard to know if it's just coincidence or whatever, but the visions.

Anyway.

I was going to say

quickly, if we can, because 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.

So can I talk about Trendy Cafe?

Please.

So we just 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 was a, 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 and 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 that 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 cafe and they just dance at you.

And we got, it 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, 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 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.

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 a screen, which also took a seat out.

I can't remember what was on there at the very, very start, but

Trendy Cafe opened.

I've got to say, 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 a 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.

And I'm going, 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 and they're like to like 60 year old people who are on mad 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 were like oh fuck

and then as soon as we got on stage

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 don't even know if it's in the show anymore, 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, no self-censoring, just fully in it.

I was like, I was like,

you were so nervous about that.

You've fully left your body.

Yeah, it's weird.

I was laughing about that last night.

Hey, really?

It just, it's a fucking roll of the dice with me.

It was so funny.

It was so nervous sometimes.

But I just remember fully before that first show was being like, I don't know.

Yeah.

Because if I'd be fucking sick.

Yeah, I was crippled.

And also, like, I remember we went out flyering to try and convince people to come to the show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

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.

Cause 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.

It's because of us handsome men in suits.

These little boys walking around in

black suits with a black tie.

Mine was the same one i uh wore to my grandfather's funeral because uh i didn't have money to afford more than one black suit yeah well um i can tell you about adrian i hope adrian doesn't mind me saying this but um he worked at a suit store yeah and um

i went in and he heavily discounted me

heavily discounted me um he jokingly said i remember he put it all through like i bought 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

but um

so open with pants with the trendy caffeine 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 Merv Hughes which is a cricket player and then the channel nine 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 they would describe gold and all its

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 the, but I grew up, one of my uncles looked like Merv Hughes.

And so

we just, 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 eludes me.

I remember some of the rare ones.

I think Well You Could might have been.

Well You Could was a great one.

It's Adrian I always just a yeah a list sketch which we were referred to as a list sketch where I'm bored and

Adrian would go well you could have a put a pasta necklace thing and he he forgot the lines on the very first night.

And just said some pretty crook shit in his bank.

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.

Yeah.

And the look of disappointment on my mother's face, like just midnight.

Yeah.

And just so...

Like, I don't know if the first night went well or bad.

I think it went okay.

Yeah.

And

just the look of disappointment on my mother's face.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, we we fucked it.

I remember after the first night thinking, oh, okay, we fucked it.

Yeah.

Well, because there was, well, you could, there was also

my balls.

Yeah, my balls.

Yeah, the misdirection.

Yes.

A couple of.

What was that one called?

You know what I'd like to call it?

Naughty Sketch.

Naughty Sketch.

Naughty Sketch.

You know what I'd like to call it?

Because that's on YouTube.

I took over Adrian when Adrian left the group and Broden and I did that too.

You became Adrian.

But there was some weird screen.

GPS.

GPS.

We were the first people that I knew to do the screensaver thing because we had the screen and was everyone cheering for it to hit the corner.

Yep, we had DVD.

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.

Xbox was obviously in it.

Xbox was there.

Found out I'm gay.

Yes.

Was in it.

Maybe that was earlier than I think.

Yeah, it was.

I remember that what we said afterwards was that that show.

Because we got nominated for a Golden Gibbo Award, which is Best Independent Production, which I would argue is the reason.

We got one review.

It was four stars in the Herald Sun.

That was, I want to talk about that.

Oh, yeah.

I remember.

So I was driving.

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.

And we just didn't think reviewers would come.

And then I was driving in.

It was a Monday because we were going in to see Idiots' Events

on our day off.

And I was driving.

I was turning off Hoddle Street from the Eastern Freeway.

And you rang me, and I said, Hey, man, 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,

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 well we just we wanted approval and we got it yeah and uh you know 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 and a little quote and then went around and stapled them to all our fucking posters that were around and shit like it was so cool yeah um and uh because i remember i was just checking the fucking you know checking the herald son website jim shembury jim shembury thank you jim great fucking uh uh that was who 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, 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 Shembry.

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're like, fuck, we

went, we got a 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 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.

Or as we're a fucking failure.

And then we lost the gearbox.

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,

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, you know, 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 pitcher at the fucking Oscars.

Yeah.

You are going to 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.

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, it's, yeah, absolutely.

As opposed to like,

I 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 legitimize them.

And I thought,

don't do that because you could sell 2,000 tickets at this festival or you can just become, you could do, make, yeah, it's, yeah.

Well, because I don't think it does anymore.

I think that was true of the 90s.

Yeah.

You know, and like the early noughties and stuff.

But now it's just a completely different fucking game.

Yeah.

And

it's.

How did we get here?

Yeah, how did we get here?

But it's 13 years ago.

It's funny how much you remember it because I remember writing the roller coaster of that show and fucking it really locking me.

And Zach said, I remember famously.

Zach's a smart individual.

He said, we've had a really cool big breakthrough here, but I think it's going to 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 become was just a bunch of fucking cunts and I don't know what the fuck they're doing.

And that is the story of our first show.

But 13 years ago, so if Auntie 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.

The tiny chair.

Tiny.

I loved Tiny Chair.

I really did love Tiny Chair.

But you know, I was thinking about Tiny Chair.

Yeah.

Because Tiny Chair, 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 any, 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 went, oh, oh, like, and it kind of gave way from under you.

And you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh.

And you started doing like, we got to stop overthinking this.

Yeah.

And so I kind of made you put it in this show.

Yeah, gut.

It was, but that was good.

That was like, cause I am the kind of performer that I think will go and do something that feels gut funny.

And then I can get in my head about it.

And then 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 push it and believe in it and believe in what you're doing.

Because you can genuinely just get up and move around and people people will laugh.

And like the majority of the world can't do that.

You literally just do it.

Stop, I'm blushing.

But it's true.

That's very kind of you to say it.

And Zach is the same as well.

I remember the first time I saw Zach

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 I was like, that's very talented people, both of you.

Anyway, as are you.

No, you don't need it.

Hey, five stars in the age

for your first ever solo show.

You should be very proud.

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 last run, or it's going to be around?

We'll go around Australia.

It's called Yubasu.

Yes.

Yes.

I know it's a basketballer.

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 ain't 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.

That thing.

But check it all out.

We really are in our post-moonshape pool

Radiohead era.

Benz is a good album.

On Double J at the moment, they're highlighting Ben's.

Are they doing all the B-sides?

Because it's the

30th.

Well, yeah, Double J's is going, here's a classic album from 20 years ago.

Yeah.

And so, you know, fake plastic trees.

Yeah,

they'd made a little

Spotify playlist of all the bc of all the b-sides which are

i mean all radiohead b-sides exceptional that's great um and the b and the uh the benz b-sides in particular uh you got bishop's robes do you know as well it's interesting when people look back at radiohead now i know i'm i'm at this when benz comes out i'm six yeah

when jigsaw uh when rain in rainbows comes out in 2007 i'm like an adult now i'm 18

and i'm taking in it as contemporary, like not contemporary, but as 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 Rainbow's very good.

But it sounds different to their other stuff as well.

Sounds different.

It's very ethereal.

And like acoustic, not acoustic, but it feels in a, I don't know.

It's gorgeous.

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, Brian.

And thank you, Lindsay, for that great music at the start.

And we'll see you all.

You've been listening to the Auntie Donner podcast.

Thanks for joining us for another rip episode brought to you by Auntie DonnerClub.com.

See you next week.