| Aunty Donna | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Active: | 2011–present | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Aunty Donna is an Australian surrealist comedy group formed in Melbourne in 2011. The group consists of performers and writers Mark Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane, alongside writer and director Sam Lingham, director Max Miller and composer Thomas Zahariou.[1] Their work spans numerous live shows, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a studio album, the Netflix series Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun, the ABC Australia series Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe and the picture book Always Room for Christmas Pud.
Members of the group have cited comedians Monty Python,[2] [3] [4] Shaun Micallef,[5] The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Fielder, and Tim & Eric as influences, as well as television series such as Mr. Show with Bob and David[6] and Stella, and programming block Adult Swim. They have frequently collaborated with other comedians such as Michelle Brasier and Demi Lardner.
Aunty Donna was formed in 2011 after its five original members (Mark Bonanno, Broden Kelly, Joe Kosky, Sam Lingham, and Zachary Ruane) met at University of Ballarat's Arts Academy.[7] Trained as actors, the group saw a lack of demand for independent theatre and decided to attempt comedy instead,[8] beginning as live performers.[9] Their first live show, Aunty Donna in Pantsuits, debuted in 2012 at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) and was nominated for a Golden Gibbo award, which pushed the group to continue making comedy.[10] [11] Kelly also recruited his high school friend, composer Thomas Zahariou (née Armstrong) soon after its founding.[12] To perform at the festival, MICF required the group to film a selection of comedy sketches, for which they recruited director Max Miller, who Kelly and Zahariou knew from high school. They created sketches for C31 Melbourne, and began their YouTube channel in 2011 to upload the sketches from C31 and their MICF online.
Joe Kosky and later Adrian Dean departed Aunty Donna to pursue other ventures, bringing the group to the current six members.[13] Their second live show, Aunty Donna and the Fax Machine Shop, debuted at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2012,[14] and won its People’s Choice Award.[15] 2014 saw their third live show, World's Greatest Showbag, at the MICF, as well as a Best Of live show that debuted the group internationally at both the SF Sketchfest and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[16] [17]
In 2015, the group created a self-titled half-hour television pilot for the ABC and Screen Australia as part of the inaugural Fresh Blood Pilot Season comedy initiative, but the series was not picked up.[18] [19] According to Kelly, the pilot was about the experience of Dean leaving the group.[20] They released the sketch "Bikie Wars" on YouTube, featuring John Wood of Blue Heelers fame, which became their most popular video. The Sydney Morning Herald credited the group with successfully converting its online fanbase into "bums on seats" for their live shows, and Ruane also credited his group's YouTube following for their ability to sell out shows in London earlier in the year.[21]
In 2016, the group released the web series 1999, based on the Y2K panic and funded by Screen Australia as part of their $100,000 Skip Ahead talent development initiative. They were also selected by Comedy Central for its Australian Not for TV web series platform, and were the first to be launched on the site.[22] The group began the weekly Aunty Donna Podcast.[23]
In 2017, the group released a second half-hour comedy pilot, Chaperones created with Australian online streaming service Stan and produced by Nel Minchin for In Films, in which the trio were entrusted with the care of a child star. The pilot was again not continued into a full series.[24] In April, they starred in the music video for hip-hop duo Horrorshow's "Eat The Cake".[25] They adopted the mantra "whatever's funniest", attempting to adapt their source material uniquely to different comedic formats such as their live shows and YouTube sketches. Their live show Big Boys was the group's first North American theater tour.[26]
April 2018 saw the release of the group's first full-length studio album, The Album, which featured Montaigne, Matt Okine, Michelle Brasier, and Joey Walker of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard,[27] [28] and was followed by a national tour in November and October.[29] The Album debuted at number 30 on the Australian charts and received an ARIA nomination for Best Comedy Release.[30] They released a version of a past live show, New Show, on YouTube, filmed at the Enmore Theatre.[31] Their production company, Haven't You Done Well Productions, was established.[32] The group also released the sketch "Always Room for Christmas Pud", which the Australian Financial Review later said had become "something of a Millennial cultural touchstone in Australia".[33] The sketch would become a running gag for the group, later receiving a family friendly re-release in 2022.[34]
Making use of their production company, the group released the 16-part Glennridge Secondary College web series in 2019, which followed a fictional Australian secondary school.[35] It was nominated for an AACTA Award for the best online drama or comedy.
In November 2020, Aunty Donna released their Netflix series Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun, produced by Ed Helms' Pacific Electric Picture Company and Scott Aukerman's Comedy Bang! Bang!, and featuring guest appearances from Helms, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Antony Starr, Kristen Schaal, Paul F. Tompkins, and others.[36] To promote the show, the group erected a replica of the Utah monolith in Melbourne with help from YouTubers I Did a Thing and Aleksa Vulović.[37] [38] Neil Patrick Harris and RuPaul both praised the show.
In March 2021, Aunty Donna hosted the Opening Night Comedy Allstars Supershow at the MICF.[39] [40] They made a cameo appearance on season 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under in June.[41]
2022 saw The Magical Dead Cat Tour, the group's first live tour in three years after it was delayed by COVID-19 lockdowns, covering Australia and New Zealand.[42] Later in the year, the group released Always Room for Christmas Pud, a picture book published by Penguin Books and illustrated by James Fosdike, based on their popular YouTube video of the same name.[43] They hosted the musical comedy gala at Sydney's Just for Laughs comedy festival in December.[44] For Christmas, the group released a real "$30 Bottle Of Wine", in reference to their 2016 sketch of the same name.[45]
In August 2022, the group announced that they had been signed by ABC to create a new sitcom TV series depicting them running a café in the Melbourne laneways.[46] The show was later named Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe and was released on the 12 April 2023.[47] [48] Alongside the main members of the group, the series starred Gaby Seow, Sally-Anne Upton, Michelle Brasier, Vidya Rajan, and Mish Wittrup, while several guest stars made an appearance including Richard Roxburgh, Pia Miranda, Nazeem Hussain, Miranda Tapsell, Shaun Micallef, Tony Martin, Melanie Bracewell, Steven Oliver, Sam Pang and Sammy J.[49]
In 2023, The trio provided voices for characters in the Australian version of the 2023 film .[50] They continued the Dead Cat Tour in the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States.[51] [52] After returning from the tour, the group began to release a three-hour Dungeons & Dragons campaign via Patreon in November, hosted by Bonanno and titled The McMuffin MacGuffin.[53] However, the hard drive holding the footage was destroyed, leading to the release of only one episode and the filming of a second campaign featuring writer Sam Lingham.[54]
The other members of the troupe have noted that Kelly is its hardest worker, and that he possesses "clarity about how an audience is likely to react to something.” Outside of Aunty Donna, Kelly has appeared in Orange Is the New Brown,[55] [56] How to Stay Married, True Story with Hamish & Andy, Fisk, and Would I Lie to You? Australia.[57] In 2023, Broden began the podcast The Footy with Broden Kelly alongside Zahariou and one episode a week with sports journalist Marnie Vinall, which has featured Bronson Reed as a guest.[58] Broden also featured in the highly successful Coles Mastercard advertisement campaign from 2015-2018.[59]
Bonanno has been described by Kelly as "laser-focused and into the meticulous detail" in terms of his work in the group. He played the character Skulldrich in The Wizards of Aus in 2017,[60] co-created the ABC television series Why Are You Like This with Naomi Higgins and Humyara Mahbub in 2021,[61] [62] and has directed a comedy shows for gay comedy duo Woah, Alyssa![63] and for Demi Lardner.[64] In 2023, he appeared as a guest on season 5 of Thank God You're Here.[65] Bonnano also appeared on 2023's We Interrupt This Broadcast.[66]
Bonanno has a channel on Twitch.[67] In 2020, he received media attention for posting the same photo of himself and his father Charlie to Instagram every day.[68]
Described by Kelly as "macro-minded" in his Aunty Donna work, Ruane also hosts a film podcast alongside Mish Wittrup called Mish and Zach's Leguizamarama, about character actor John Leguizamo and his works,[69] and hosts film screenings at Lido Cinemas under the title Fun Time Film Club.[70]
Miller is half Greek, half Scottish, and studied at Swinburne University of Technology. Outside of his directing for Aunty Donna, he has directed short films and commercials. In 2014, he co-directed the music video for "High" by Peking Duk, which won a 2015 Rolling Stone Australia Award for "Music Video of the Year."[71]
Lingham is a co-writer for the group, and also operates as a director and producer.
Zahariou (formerly Armstrong) is the group's composer, composing the entire soundtrack for Big Ol' House of Fun.[72]
Haven't You Done Well Productions is a production company established by the members of Aunty Donna in 2018, with the aim of assisting and educating online creatives, who would usually struggle to find a platform due to being too "weird", to develop and produce comedy projects and to ensure they retain ownership of their own works. The company is mentored by Andy Lee. In 2019, it received funding from Screen Australia, sharing a pool of $1.2 million for sector and talent development.
The company produced Aunty Donna's webseries Glennridge Secondary College[73] and co-produced Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun and Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe. It has produced several comedy webseries which are hosted on the YouTube channel Grouse House, including Hug The Sun (2021) featuring Ben Russell and Xavier Michelides,[74] Hot Department: Dark Web (2022) featuring comedy duo Hot Department, and Finding Yeezus (2022), a six-part documentary web series that revealed the identity of the creator of the 2013 video game Kanye Quest 3030 starring Cameron James and Alexei Toliopoulos and directed by Max Miller.[75] [76] [77] In 2022 Screen Australia funded its production of science fiction romantic comedy The Alien Abduction of Emily Hill,[78] and in 2023 Crime Casters, a comedy about a true crime podcaster.[79] In 2023, they produced Fairbairn Films' Fairbairn in the City, again financed by Screen Australia's Skip Ahead funding.[80]
In June 2024, the company announced a commercial division, having already filmed ads for Samsung, PlayStation, Heineken, Coles and a campaign for a collaboration between Lego and Sega.[81]
Aunty Donna stated on their podcast that their live shows are "deep down, what [they] are most passionate about".[82] As such, they try to plan and perform one live show per year.
| Year | Show title | Tours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Aunty Donna in Pantsuits | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | |
| 2012 | Aunty Donna and the Fax Machine Shop (A Murder Mystery) | Melbourne Fringe Festival | |
| 2013 | Aunty Donna and the Fax Machine Shop | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | |
| 2013 | Aunty Donna (Best Of) | Sydney (Factory Theatre) | |
| 2014 | Aunty Donna's World's Greatest Showbag | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | |
| 2014 | Aunty Donna (Best Of) | Edinburgh Festival Fringe, SF Sketchfest | |
| 2015 | Aunty Donna (Self Titled) | Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, London (Soho Theatre), regional UK tour | |
| 2016 | Aunty Donna: New Show | Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Perth Fringe, New Zealand International Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, London (Soho Theatre), North America | |
| 2017 | Aunty Donna: Big Boys | Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Canberra Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Perth Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, New Zealand International Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, London (Leicester Square Theatre), North America | |
| 2018 | Aunty Donna: Glennridge Secondary College | Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Canberra Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, New Zealand International Comedy Festival | |
| 2018 | Aunty Donna: The Album Tour | Australian tour | |
| 2019 | Aunty Donna: Glennridge Graduation Party | Australian tour | |
| 2022–2023 | Aunty Donna: The Magical Dead Cat Tour | Australian/New Zealand tour followed by world tour of Australia, UK, Ireland, USA and Canada |
In December 2012, Aunty Donna created Aunty Donna's Rumpus Room, a seven-part web series which originally aired as segments on C31 Melbourne and its YouTube channel. Much of its YouTube content is based on content adapted from its live shows, and vice versa.
The majority of Aunty Donna's YouTube content is organized by the group into different series. These series include:
The group began a self-titled podcast in 2016, releasing weekly episodes. It usually involves improvised character comedy with satirical premises,[85] and occasionally includes special guests such as comedians Ben Russell, Tim Minchin, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Bob Saget, Demi Lardner, Michelle Brasier, Rove McManus, and David Cross. The podcast is represented under LiSTNR,[86] and has been described by Wonderland as "hugely popular".
In 2018, Aunty Donna announced they would be releasing their debut album The Album on 6 April 2018. On 9 February 2018, Aunty Donna released the first single from the album, "Chuffed (Dad Song)", and accompanying video. The album debuted at No. 30 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
| Title | Details | Peak positions |
|---|---|---|
| AUS[87] | ||
| The Album |
| 30 |
| Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun (Music from the Netflix Comedy Series) |
| |
| Aunty Donna's Coffee Café |
| |
|-| rowspan="2"| 2012| Melbourne International Comedy Festival| Golden Gibbo Award| Aunty Donna in Pantsuits| | |-| Melbourne Fringe Festival| People's Choice Award| Aunty Donna and the Fax Machine Shop| | |-| 2013| Melbourne WebFest| Melbourne's Best Prize| Aunty Donna's Rumpus Room| | [88] |-| 2014| 9th AACTA Awards| Best Online Drama or Comedy| Glennridge Secondary College| | [89] |-| rowspan="2"| 2016| Melbourne WebFest| Best Ensemble| 1999| | [88] |-| Sydney Comedy Festival| Director's Choice| Aunty Donna| | [90] |-| 2017| Helpmann Awards| Best Comedy Performer| Big Boys| | [91] |-| 2018| ARIA Music Awards| Best Comedy Release| Aunty Donna: The Album| | [92] |-| 2019| Melbourne WebFest| Best Australian Comedy| Glennridge Secondary College| | [88] |-| rowspan="4"| 2021| rowspan="4"| 11th AACTA Awards| Best Narrative Comedy Series| Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun| | [93] |-| rowspan="2"| Best Comedy Performer| Mark Bonanno| | |-| Broden Kelly| | |-| Best Original Score in Television| Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House Of Fun - Episode 1: Housemates| | [94] |-