Netflix has been hit with a fresh dose of Australian insanity, and it comes in the form of the sketch comedy series Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun. The titular Aunty Donna is not a woman, but rather three bearded men who hail from Melbourne and specialise in absurd non-sequiturs, bizarre musical numbers, and parodies of everything from high school life to 90’s office culture.
The Big Ol’ House of Fun in question is the setting of much of the series, and host to their many adventures that see them go searching for a new housemate, treasure hunting, training for the Olympics, preparing for a date, staying up late, and hosting a dinner party. These thin ideas are used as frameworks for each episodes’ comedic riffs, which oscillate between scripted and improvised. Narrative structure is set aside to let the show run off on tangents, only to return at the end of each episode to bring the setups to unexpected conclusions.
Its humour is not unlike British comedy series The Mighty Boosh in its surrealism and inventive sight gags, though by nature of being a sketch show Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun is even less beholden to continuity. The core trio, Mark, Zach, and Broden, are more of the main attraction than the stories they cook up. At their most exuberant they burst out into comedic songs, and at their most scathing they break the fourth wall and acknowledge the artificiality of the show. Each member take turns playing the straight man and the fool, though often the sketches will revolve around rapid dramatic escalations that see them all eventually submit to their most eccentric impulses.
Long-time fans of Aunty Donna will notice some of their classic sketches making their way into the series, often with alterations made to fit an episode’s themes. For example, “Roll Call” becomes a housemate interview, and “School Nurse” becomes a sports doctor, still played by the hilariously talented Michelle Brasier. Some of the adapted sketches keep close to their original scripts, only revised to fit a bigger budget. It is in these that results are more varied – the song “Everything’s a Drum” benefits from the large array of props at their disposal, but the “Family Feud” sketch played out better in their live shows when Mark and Zach’s quick switching between the roles was part of the joke, rather than replaced with visual effects.
Netflix’s investment in such a bizarre series is a risk that has paid off and bodes well for the future of television sketch comedy. As shows in this vein are finding it increasingly difficult to find slots on free-to-air programming, streaming is proving to be the home of eccentric artists looking to reach wider audiences. Aunty Donna have spent close to a decade establishing a presence on YouTube and other social media channels, and now that they have brought their irreverence to Netflix through their Big Ol’ House of Fun, they are able to experiment with bigger, wilder, and ballsier comedic ideas.
