‘We had to blow up a hamster’: Inside Aunty Donna’s bonkers ABC comedy

The cavernous soundstages of Melbourne’s Docklands Studios can simultaneously host production for several television shows or feature films, but last September it wasn’t difficult to distinguish which soundstage was hosting the hit American network drama La Brea and which one was home to Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe, the sitcom that brings the Melbourne sketch comedy savants to the ABC.

In the hallways of the latter, a procession of extras could be divided into three groups: nerds, sports bros and vampires. Apparently they were needed for a musical number, which was part of the show’s sixth and final episode. To one side, guest star Miranda Tapsell was kitted out in Chanel pink and heels. And when word politely arrived that Mark Bonanno, one of the three performers who make up Aunty Donna’s public face, would be held up for a few minutes, it was for a suitably unexpected reason.

“He’s covered in blood,” was the explanation. “We had to blow up a hamster.”

A sitcom is the most institutional of television comedies. The half-hour structure stretches back to the 1950s and even now it has guidelines that are close to codified. If that seems an unlikely destination for Aunty Donna – performers Bonanno, Zachary Ruane and Broden Kelly, co-writer Sam Lingham, director Max Miller and composer Thomas Zahariou – after a career built on absurdist sketches and brain-bending leaps of imagination, rest assured that contradiction was exactly what attracted the group.

Aunty Donna (from left): Broden Kelly, Mark Bonanno and Zachary Ruane.Credit: ABC

“Once we started working on the idea of a sitcom we all got very excited because we’d never done anything like this before,” Bonanno says. “Of course, because we’ve never done anything like this before, it could be really bad.”

Still clutching some tissues but notably free of the prop department’s fake hamster blood, the lanky comic spark plug laughs heartily at the thought of failure. Rising from early incarnations built around the performing arts programs at the University of Ballarat, Aunty Donna made their name with a chaotic comedy circuit style that won festival awards and quickly graduated to a vast YouTube following. Their material is madcap, often brilliantly bonkers, but behind-the-scenes they thoughtfully discuss each creative leap.

“We’re getting to a point now where we’re asking, ‘what is our take on a sitcom?’ Hopefully, ‘what is our take on a feature film?’ That’s what we’re working towards, because I don’t want to just do sketch comedy,” Bonanno says. “Everything needs to come to an end eventually, and we’ve already been doing this for a decade. In the time we have left we want to explore different mediums.”

The group’s international breakthrough was Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun, a sketch comedy series for Netflix that came out in November 2020 and was a perfect distillation of their ridiculous concepts and ludicrously complete commitment to a bit. Most creators would be disappointed that they didn’t get the green light for a second season, but in Aunty Donna’s case they believe they dodged a bullet.

“While that would have been nice for everyone to see, creatively we’ve been doing sketch for 10 years. Even in the first season there was old stuff, new stuff, old stuff with a fresh coat of paint. I don’t really know how a second season would have gone,” Bonanno says. “This show really came out of asking ourselves, ‘Can we do something exciting and different?’ When we spoke to the ABC about it, and they learnt it had an element of sitcom to it, they asked if we could dial that up.”

On paper, Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe is a workplace comedy. Mark, Zach and Broden are just three friends trying to make their small business a success. Each episode is centred around the coffee cafe set, and the show has regular customers who provide a quirky presence, albeit one prone to cheerfully unhinged commentary. There are schemes to attract more customers, a blind date that goes wrong, and an audience proxy in the form of unimpressed new hire Stephanie (Gaby Seow). Then again, there are also heritage-listed wasps, a lunatic conspiracy involving $5 notes, and demonic possession.

Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe takes inspiration from The Might Boosh.Credit: ABC

“The reason I keep thinking we can pull it off is The Mighty Boosh. That is a sitcom structure and it’s absolutely bonkers, going to wild places,” Bonanno says. “The thing we’re very much about is that while absurdity is great, if it doesn’t have something relatable to launch off, it can just get too weird. Now this show does get too weird, but it is always grounded. It comes back to three friends running a coffee shop.”

If there’s some doubt in executing that creative balancing act, there’s no sign of it on set. Max Miller calmly sets up a shot with two cameras while Sam Lingham, fresh from playing one of the nerds, happily sits to one side. “We end on a positive note,” he says of the series, before going over to say hello to Kelly’s long-time partner, who has emerged from make-up covered in a strange substance for a sight gag that’s on the shot list.

“We’ve worked with Max when the crew was just him with a camera on his shoulder,” Zachary Ruane says. “We may be in Docklands with a crew of 50, but in a way it’s still just us and Max. We have good people doing great work, but when push comes to shove I know that I can play and that Max gets it.”

Richard Roxburgh dons his familiar robes as a version of his beloved barrister from Rake in Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe.Credit: ABC

One of the things that Aunty Donna discussed before shooting Coffee Cafe, and on each Sunday before a production week, was how the sitcom structure would accommodate their performance style. If the obvious answer was to tamp down their eruptive energy, the instinctive response was to go the other way.

“As a writer I really wanted the accessibility that a narrative adds, the throughline it gives an audience, and the temptation is to also think that way as an actor, to think of continuity,” Ruane says. “We want to push against that, and be more intense. There’s actually a foundation we can play off.”

The last time Aunty Donna made a show for the ABC was eight years, when they shot a pilot for the national broadcaster’s Fresh Blood initiative at the Fitzroy apartment shared by Bonanno and Miller. Halfway through their unauthorised shoot they were busted by their landlord and subsequently evicted, while the ABC rejected the pilot. Now they’re pitching a gag that involves Richard Roxburgh playing a version of his beloved barrister from Rake, and pulling it off, with the actor turning up on set ready to don his familiar robes.

“Everyone just said yes: the ABC, the creators of Rake, then Richard, then he was available,” Bonanno says. “It’s been a learning process, but fun. The smaller the box you’re working in, the more creative you have to be.”

Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe is on the ABC, Wednesday 9.30pm.

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