DONNA BROOKBANKS

Why should we see your show?

I have been travelling around the country and to Melbourne working on the show, so I’m hoping it’ll be good by the time Comedy Fest rolls around. Fingers crossed! It kind of works better with an audience too, so...

Describe your style of comedy in one sentence.

Self-deprecating, relatable, observational sketch and standup.

Craft the perfect date night around your show:

I’m going to go with date night with the girls for this one. It’d start with bubbles and cheese at Karen’s house, where Wendy will probably have too many before they even leave, and Michelle will shriek, “We should really order pizza you guys!” every 15 minutes while Yvette rolls her eyes at her. Also, Janice will lose her phone, but it’ll be in her pocket the whole time. They’d all get an Uber in and have a vino before the show, and then laugh hysterically at all the relatable stuff; “omg you SO do that Karen”. Afterwards, they’ll go out and sing karaoke or hit the D-floor until late, and scream that they love each other 500 times. Perfect date night.

Best of the fest this year?

All of the other Billy T nominees and all the cast of Snort’s individual shows. There are some great Australians heading over too: Becky Lucas, Demi Lardner and Aaron Chen. David Correos is going to be FIRE this year.

What’s your worst heckling story?

I was taking part in the Queenstown Comedy Debate as part of the Winter Festival a few years ago and I had only just started doing comedy. Everyone was being introduced on stage: Paul Ego, Vaughan Smith, Heather du Plessis-Allan, Oliver Driver and James Nokise, when I realised that no one in the audience was going to know who I was and it completely threw me. I got up to do my speech in front of about 1000 people, and three minutes in, someone from the back just yells out: “Yeah but who even are you?” Jeremy Corbett was sitting behind me so I did a 360, looked him right in the eye and mouthed “f***”, turned back to the front and kept talking.

2019 Billy T nominee Donna Brookbanks performs her new solo show Heroic at Q Theatre Vault from May 21-25.