Business (casual)
Hello! My little news bits are in this bit. If you’re in the UK, you can see me at the following places -
Birmingham 28th May
Cardiff 29th May
Bristol 30th May
Southampton 1st June
Cambridge 4th June
London (at the Clapham Grand) 6th June
If you’ve already seen me on my REFORM tour please do tell your mates in these cities. I’ve been having a cute as hell time so far. Thank you if you have come along. I’m so astounded to see you every night, it’s lovely. AND if you are in one of the cities where we got standing ovations or if you came to say hello after any show please know you made my absolute day. Touring is really hard. I miss my dog a lot. But you guys make it worth it.
If you’re in Melbourne you can see Reform at The Arts Centre as part of Replay festival July 4-6th. If you’ve seen it before, it’s pretty different now having been through the Edinburgh Fringe glow up mill. I’m really proud of it.
I’m back at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival this year with my cult comedy night Comedians On Stage Auditioning For Musicals. You simply must come. Info here.
EDINBURGH FRINGE
I am coming back to Gilded Balloon for fringe to do my new show Legacy! It has my best songs and the best jokes in it and I cannot wait to show you! Book here
You can watch my latest episode of Aunty Donna’s Most Upsetting Guessing Game over here. Watch the whole series, it is very good.
Hot reminder you can also pre-order my book here from Aus and I believe Here if you’re from the UK. I love my book so much and I think it is the best thing I have ever written. I hope you love it too.
Dogs
Send me your dogs on instagram to review. Here’s one of Eva to get us rolling.
Eva is a Guide Dog Ambassador. Usually I have to guess a dog’s job but since we’re housemates I already know Eva’s job. She spends most of her time in green rooms of theatres or in the costume trailer on set getting black hair all over everything. Her job is to get people used to having a Guide Dog around. She helps lots of people get over their fear of dogs too which is very nice to watch. Eva could in theory guide a person through life but she cannot handle the noise of furniture moving and she is very avoidant of kitchens and slippery floors. She is a very sensitive and sweet girl who loves cuddles in the morning and all food at all times. If Eva wasn’t a promo girl she would be a difficult to work with, brilliant dramatic actress or an assistant manager at a retail shop that sells mostly pearls. 5 stars.
The Catholic Queen of Spanish Pride (people are sometimes very kind)
I am sitting in a theatre that is arguably too large for purpose. I’m with my mum, my partner Tim and my friends Shanon, Joe and Reuben. We’re all here at the Green Room Awards Ceremony and we are nominated for the same awards. The night will play out in our favour and we will walk away with one each. A blessing for our fragile egos and surprisingly sturdy friendships.
Whoever is running this ceremony has made a series of mistakes, the house lights remain obnoxiously on for the entire duration of the night and technical difficulties with the live stream mean that by half way through the night, winners are asked not to make a speech. We all make a speech. If the minister for arts can make a speech at the beginning that goes for 6 months, I’m getting up in my gown to say my thank-you. If you want to run a tight ship, learn how to use zoom or even just the on/off switch for the fucking house lights.
I should clarify, my mum is not here to accept an award. She is here to support me. To see this part of my life. I sometimes think there is something I am running to in my life. Something I’m always desperately hurtling towards and appealing for. I think it might be the approval of my mum. Not that she’s ever been unsupportive. She wasn’t a stage mother but she drove me to countless singing lessons and Les Miserables rehearsals. She just doesn’t understand the industry which means that usually, she doesn’t have any context for my successes. I will call her to tell her I’m going to be a regular on a TV show I have always dreamed of being on and she will simply ask if I get paid or is it some sort of volunteer situation. But tonight she is here in the room with the glamour and the photographers and she can see that I have done something right and I can see in her eyes that she is proud of me. She is sitting next to Joe with his fizzing personality and his Kate Moss appearance. She is loving it. Joe and Shanon are heading to Spain soon and so is my mum. Mum is going to look at all the churches. My family is catholic in a Spanish way and in an Irish way. That is to say, my family is aggressively Catholic. Mum obviously isn’t homophobic or really even properly religious I don’t think. I believe my mum goes to church for two reasons, to feel close to the husband and son she lost so cruelly early, to feel the hope that one day maybe they might be reunited - and - to get a bit of peace and bloody quiet. The boys are going to Spain for Pride and Joe tells mum they will take her along. That she can be the catholic queen of Spanish pride. She is absolutely chuffed by this. It’s Mum’s big gay night out and she loves it. She is passed around the room, everybody eager to meet her because she is my mum and she feels loved and special and cool I think. And I wonder how many times in her life my 70-something year old mum has felt cool. I wish I could meet her as a young woman. Her and my late father and brother. I wish for this quietly every day. My mum often says ‘people aren’t kind to each other any more’ but tonight, everybody is kind to her. And she is glowing.
3 months later, Mum is in Spain. She’s staying in a beautiful hotel with a marble staircase and because, like me, my mother is easily distracted by beautiful things, she isn’t looking down on the stairs and she slips and falls. I get a phone call from my uncle who says that Mum is in hospital in Grenada. She has broken her hip and possibly her back. I ask him where the neighbour she is travelling with is and he says she has continued her trip onwards and left mum alone in Spain. People aren’t kind to each other anymore. I tell my uncle I am worried she will get covid in the hospital and he tells me ‘Oh she’s already got that. She’s got no symptoms though. Was very surprised at the test results’ And I think maybe that’s why I have still never tested positive on a RAT test. Maybe the Brasier girls are asymptomatic. Hot girls get covid as a sexy little secret from ourselves. And then I remember that my mother is in Grenada in a hospital with a possible broken back and she speaks the least Spanish of anyone in the family. She is alone. And I call Shanon.
Shanon and Joe are a few hours away but they are still in Spain and so Shanon gets on a train to a hospital in Grenada where nobody speaks english. He lies at reception, says he is her son and they let him see her. He doesn’t care that she has covid. He helps her with her sim card, downloads google translate for her and goes into town to buy her a book. He calls me from the English book store and spends almost a full hour reading different blurbs of books to me because he wants to buy her the perfect one. He returns to the hospital with the perfect book, a sexy historical fiction, and an enormous bunch of flowers addressed to my mum, the Catholic queen of Spanish pride. People are sometimes very kind to each other.
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Mum is fine now by the way. Her travel insurance flew my sister over to collect her and bring her back business class. She’s had a full hip replacement and is now back overseas. She is here in England. She’s come over to see my show in London at the Clapham Grand. I don’t know that she planned on travelling again so soon. I’m pretty sure she had a few too many red wines and used up all of her Qantas points but here she is, having the absolute time of her life. She loves the UK and Ireland. Properly loves it. See below picture of her properly loving it.
HOT RECS
Ok my hot recs this week guys -
If you’re an Australian in London looking for a good soy latte get your arse to % Arabica at Broadway Market. It’s so delicious and it’s Bonsoy baby. Alpro needs to get in the bin.
I haven’t watched anything new obviously because I am on tour so I can only watch things that make me feel safe and also 15 years old so here’s my rewatch or watch for the first time tips -
Deadloch on Amazon Prime is the best Australian TV show we’ve maybe ever made. It’s a comedy noir made mostly for lesbians. It is so funny and so good. I’m rewatching currently.
Buffy - that’s right baby I’m watching Buffy again! You simply must watch it guys! The 90’s quippy dialogue, the fashion, the vfx! Ooooh, yum yum yum.
Read Human Kind A Hopeful History by Rutger Bergman. It’s the antidote to the news. When I finished this book I hugged it. I love it so much.
While we’re on things I’ve seen a few times and love - If you’re in Melbourne, make sure you get around Mish Wittrup, Hot Department, Alex Hines, Greg Larson, Reuben Kaye and Ben Russell at Replay festival (as well as my show). I’ll recommend some more replay shows next newsletter. There’s loads of good ones. If you’re in London, go and see Jack Tucker at Soho Theatre so long as you like chaotic anti-comedy from a joyful clown presenting as a toxic 90’s standup.
Okay this is long enough for now, I do hope you’ve made it to the end.
From my family to yours, bye love you!
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, Tiktok and Youtube (all the cursed apps - hey siri, play Jason Robert Brown’s All The Wasted Time)