MELBOURNE-BASED COMEDIAN AND

Triple R ‘Breakfasters’ host Geraldine Hickey is a bad liar – although she’s getting better at it. “I used to be hellbent on being completely honest in my material, but now I think my priority is to be funny. I’ve done all my big stories. [Now] everything I write starts from an honest place, but then it goes on a humorous journey.”“big stories” is right: her 2006 show One Week in

Paradise dealt with her depression and time spent in a psychiatric unit, and 2012’s Turns

Out I Do Like Sun Dried Tomatoes was about coming out (which she did publicly for the very first time on stage in 2011). These days, however, she talks about everything from Tony Abbott to not being able to get a haircut in a men’s barber shop. Her new show,

Smithereens, is about empathy, and the impact of saying ‘yes’ more. In her decadeplus career, Hickey has learned a lot about looking after her own mental health as a comedian. “For the last six years, I have been working in after-school care. Career-wise and mental health-wise, it’s been the best. I think when people first start out in comedy, there’s this notion that you’re not a real comedian until you’re doing nothing but comedy. And I did that, and it was the worst. The absolute worst. I was so poor, and you can’t be creative when you’re thinking about how you’re going to pay your rent.” Having a ‘day job’ is particularly helpful during the Comedy Festival. “If you don’t have anything else to do, then you start Googling your name, and you find reviews and you go ‘they don’t know what they’re talking about’ or ‘this is shit’ and it’s the worst fucking spiral to be in. But for me, I have to get up and go to work. And working with kids – they don’t give a shit what you do. I could’ve done a gig at the Town Hall the night before in front of 1,500 people and the next day I’ll be hanging out with a bunch of eight-year-olds that just want you to make them a Vegemite sandwich.”