Escapism was the name of the game and Aunty Donna provided it in droves with their Netflix debut, Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House Of Fun. The absurdist comedy trio from Melbourne had come good, and in spectacular fashion – the series was produced by Ed Helms (The Office, The Hangover), and also made mere props out of Toni Starr and Jack Quaid, stars of the breakaway hit series The Boys. Surely it’s Aunty Donna’s world now, and we’re all just living in it.
Now, Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly, and Zachary Ruane are returning to Australian shores for a run of theatre dates, the first of their kind in three years, for The Magical Dead Cat tour. Blunt Magazine thought this was a good opportunity to process the past 12 months, and the boys were happy to put up with us to talk them over.
A lot of discussions around tours these days seem to be coming from an ethical standpoint rather than a financial standpoint like in the past. I was wondering if this was the same in the Aunty Donna camp?
Zach: Yeah. Great question. I think it’s one of those things where, like in my solo time, I present film screenings because I’m a big nerd, and I’ve had to cancel a couple of those in the last few months. I think what I learned out of that was people are very responsive to rescheduling. It’s a new world. You get into trouble when you start trying to predict the future too much. I think in the moment is when those ethical questions come up, otherwise, you start talking about, “Well, how’s the vaccination rollout going to be? How’s this? How’s that?” In the end, you’ve just got to take the plunge, take the step, and just play it as it comes.
Three years off from theatre shows, including one year of lockdown. You guys must be in the best shape ever to get back out on the road, or you’re fucking scared cold about it. Which one is it?
Mark: I would say we’re hungry. We’re hungrier than ever, sir. During Melbourne Comedy Festival, a few days before it, we realised we hadn’t performed live in 18 months, about a year and a half or whatever. We were feeling a little out of shape. So, we put on some secret shows under a different name at midnight, which for men in their 30s is a mistake…
Zach: Yeah, midnight is too late…
Mark: Midnight is far, far too late. Very late. So, we did it under a secret name, and we wrote over an hour of stuff in four days. And then we just put on this show. It was a chance for us to, kind of like the Sgt. Pepper’s thing – not that I’m comparing us to the Beatles – just in the sense that the name Aunty Donna comes with a lot of caveats now, right? But under a different name, we can do stuff that maybe we wouldn’t normally do in Aunty Donna. And also, the show can be a big fucking shit, and it’s at midnight, and you paid 10 bucks for it. So I’m saying you get what you’re given. But really it was, I mean, for me, what I’d forgotten, I had genuinely forgotten how it was to be funny in front of a crowd of people. The shows were really loose and really silly. And it was like, let’s bring that to our wider audience now. I think we’re writing some of the best stuff we’ve ever written.
We were tossing up should we do a best of and what we came to was no, we really want to bring new stuff out onto the road. So yeah, we’re keen. We’re keen, man.
Tell me about this Magical Dead Cat. Having watched the tour promo, he seems like the worst guy to bring on tour. Why him?
Broden: We didn’t bring him on tour, he came to us. It was serendipitous because we wanted to tour but none of us believe in a higher faith. We’re all pretty atheist or agnostic or whatever. We don’t believe in any of that. But when a dead cat came to us and said, “I want you to tour,” we were like, despite the fact that we don’t believe that this can be a real thing, it is in line with our kind of goals for taking a show on tour this year, taking advantage of our new audience from the Netflix show. So we were like, well, we may as well go along with this, despite the fact that we don’t really believe that dead cats can talk.
Zach: I should also say – we don’t know how, I think it’s family or land or something – that the Magical Dead Cat is a wealthy benefactor. And he’s paying us a wage for this tour. We’re now seeing some of those sales, we’re wishing we were seeing profit.
Broden: We should have done a better deal.
Mark: Yeah, which is fucked because it’s a magical cat, and it can manifest money, and yet, it still wanted a very big percentage of the gross profits from this tour. It doesn’t make sense.
Zach: We’re not getting a great deal in hindsight, but he looks after us, and he’s a good guy in the end.
Mark: And loves a pat.
Zach: Yeah, he loves a little pat.
I’d like to know about life post-Netflix. Now that you’ve had the chance to process all of that, how did it change things for Aunty Donna?
Mark: I will say one thing, we spent weeks beforehand going, how are we going to push this show? How are we going to create a sense of buzz? How are we going to talk about it? And I remember we planned so many things, on the second day we’re going to do a live. And then literally that night, we were like, “People are just watching it, and they’re tweeting about it, and they’re talking about it…” And then we still did all the lives, which was a bit exhausting at points, but it was a really strange moment. Earlier that year, we were talking about deleting our Twitter account because we didn’t have many followers. It wasn’t very active, it didn’t really suit what we do. And I remember for about two, three weeks after it, it was like you couldn’t even follow the notifications.
The biggest thing I’ve seen that’s changed is now, genuinely, I feel like everywhere I go, someone recognises me. It used to happen a little bit. It used to happen if I went to the city every second or third time, maybe someone would stop me and say hello. But it just started to feel like it was happening everywhere. And people would actively go out of their way, I’ve had people on two separate occasions pull their car over.
They’re driving past, they pull their car over, they get out of their car, they want to talk, say hello and get a photo. Purely for no other reason other than to say, I love the show. And that is, it feels like a fucking fever dream. Because I constantly go back to – I’m just this kid from Werribee, my dad’s a butcher, and my mum’s a teacher. And I had no aspirations of wanting to be recognised or even to be an artist early on. That was just not something that was in my periphery or even that I thought was possible. And to now fast forward to here where people are almost getting into serious car accidents just to let me know they liked the show that I did, it’s overwhelming and incredible. And it reminds me that I have one of the best jobs in the entire world.
If the call came through from the President of Netflix and they say, “Hey, guys, season two, let’s do it.” Is it a yes, or is it a no?
Broden: Not sure. We have to be under the right terms and stuff. We’re more interested in Aunty Donna.
Wherever we feel like we can do our best stuff, we’re not beholden to one place, which is why we were proud that we can make a tour and do that if we want. Or we can make an album and make music if we want, or we can make a TV series. It really just comes back to us. It’s the main thing that as a group we’re really proud of – we’re malleable, and you can never predict what we’re going to do.
Having followed you guys, I feel as though you would be fans of Aunty Donna. Do you ever feel like you missed out on being able to enjoy Aunty Donna because you were too busy making Aunty Donna?
Zach: That’s a funny question. That’s a really great question.
Mark: That’s an awesome question…
Zach: So hard to know because I make Aunty Donna now, I make that so then when I go home, what I watch to relax is different. I would be watching Aunty Donna if I had lived an alternative life, but because I make Aunty Donna, when I go home I want to watch something a little more chilled out than Aunty Donna because I’m in Aunty Donna.
Broden: There’s an argument we’d be too old for us now because there’s this theory in comedy that your favourite comedy, the comedy that really strikes a chord with you, happens when you’re about 15, 16. So people talk about their favourite cast of Saturday Night Live and it just always happens to be the one that was when they were 15 and 16. I think a lot of comedy comes from people figuring out who they are and what things they’re excited by and who they see themselves as. And people kind of find their identity in comedy and in art, generally in music and books and movies. And so there’s an argument that someone my age, 32, would see us being silly and go, “Oh, that’s fucking stupid.” But not to the open-mindedness of a younger person. So there’s an argument that I wouldn’t like it.
Mark: On top of that, I’ve always loved art that is either you love or you hate it, there’s no middle ground. One of my favourite groups is Tim & Eric, right? And what I loved about Tim & Eric more than just enjoying what they did and how subversive it was and how weird it was and how just strikingly original it felt, was that any time I would show it to someone, they would fucking hate it, right? And that made me like it more. It was only me and my brother, that was the only other person who I knew who loved it as much as me. Then we went and we saw them live and it was just the Forum in Melbourne filled with people who felt the exact same way. That was so great. And I’ve always engaged with art in that way, so there is every chance I would fucking despise Aunty Donna. Because I think that’s what we are and that’s what we make, we make stuff that you either love or you hate.
Zach: Mark would’ve definitely embraced being the contrarian.
Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely.
So to your point, Broden, about just how malleable you guys are; I couldn’t help but notice that you had Jack Quaid and Toni Starr from The Boys on the show. What are the chances of “the boys” appearing on the next season of The Boys?
Broden: Well, it’s been shot, so…
Well, I walked into that I suppose.
Broden: The reason we got Homelander is because we know from Jack that Pud and other Donna videos were an on-set joke that everyone did around. And so Erin Moriarty, who plays Stargirl, has reached out as well. So yeah, it’s funny to think on the set of The Boys that they’re talking about Aunty Donna.
Broden: When you’re watching season three, and someone’s head explodes or whatever, just think, they were thinking about Pud.
Mark: It’s mind-blowing.
Aunty Donna ‘The Magical Dead Cat’ Australian Tour Dates
Tickets on sale now.
Tuesday, 5th October – SOLD OUT
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Wednesday, 6th October – SOLD OUT
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday 7th October – SOLD OUT
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Saturday, 9th October (Matinee) – SELLING FAST
The Playhouse, Canberra
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Saturday, 9th October (Evening show) – SELLING FAST
The Playhouse, Canberra
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Sunday, 10th October
The Playhouse, Canberra
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Tuesday, 12th October – SOLD OUT
Astor Theatre, Perth
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Tuesday, 13th October – SOLD OUT
Astor Theatre, Perth
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Monday, 18th October
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday. 21st October – SOLD OUT
Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Sunday, 24th October (Matinee)
Astor Theatre, Perth
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Sunday, 24th October (Evening show)
Astor Theatre, Perth
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Wednesday, 27th October – SOLD OUT
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday, 28th October – SOLD OUT
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Friday, 29th October – SOLD OUT
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Monday, 1st November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Tuesday, 2nd November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Wednesday, 3rd November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday, 4th November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Friday, 5th November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Saturday, 6th November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Sunday, 7th November – SOLD OUT
Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Monday, 8th November
Hamer Hall, Melbourne
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday, 11th November
Theatre Royal, Hobart
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Friday, 12th November – SOLD OUT
Theatre Royal, Hobart
Tickets: Aunty Donna
Thursday, 2nd December
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Tickets: Aunty Donna
