About the shows and about us!
In demand on the comedy circuit and adored for their ability to find the humour in everyday experiences, Mandy Nolan and Ellen Briggs believe it's their regionality that gives them strength in country audiences.
'We both live in Mullumbimby in Northern NSW - our life experiences seem to parallel the audiences that we talk to - we're not young inner city groovers. We're 40 something mothers of teenagers, we're wives, and ex wives! Ellen can wrangle a snake and operate a ride on mower in the afternoon, and by evening she dons heels and a frock and then she's MCing a charity ball. We're small town showgirls. And boy do we have fun on stage!'
There are few sacred cows that Briggs and Nolan shy away from milking, pushing the bucket of popular opinion under the teats and then the jokes start flowing!
With seven children between them, parenting and their own reoccurring instances that they call 'failure to parent' are certainly the focus of some of their material, but then so is the beauty industry, getting older, getting fatter, strange surgeries, weird TV shows, obsessions, frustrations, and at the end of the day, who unpacks the flipping dishwasher.
The two friends have teamed up to bring two hours of stand up to communities they believe would love a dose of Women Like Us.
'We're not rarefied trophy wives' says Nolan. 'We are the kind of women who know how to put up our own shelves! We just don’t dust them.’
'We both live in Mullumbimby in Northern NSW - our life experiences seem to parallel the audiences that we talk to - we're not young inner city groovers. We're 40 something mothers of teenagers, we're wives, and ex wives! Ellen can wrangle a snake and operate a ride on mower in the afternoon, and by evening she dons heels and a frock and then she's MCing a charity ball. We're small town showgirls. And boy do we have fun on stage!'
There are few sacred cows that Briggs and Nolan shy away from milking, pushing the bucket of popular opinion under the teats and then the jokes start flowing!
With seven children between them, parenting and their own reoccurring instances that they call 'failure to parent' are certainly the focus of some of their material, but then so is the beauty industry, getting older, getting fatter, strange surgeries, weird TV shows, obsessions, frustrations, and at the end of the day, who unpacks the flipping dishwasher.
The two friends have teamed up to bring two hours of stand up to communities they believe would love a dose of Women Like Us.
'We're not rarefied trophy wives' says Nolan. 'We are the kind of women who know how to put up our own shelves! We just don’t dust them.’
Ellen Briggs has an easy going friendly nature that belies the dark wit that lurks beneath. Ellen says things that other mothers dare only to think, taking her audience on an observational and hilarious journey through life as an accidentally mother of identical twins and the wife of a husband who is away working 9 months of the year. She has made an art from of sneaking in politically incorrect jokes at the end of her 'nice yarns'. A national Finalist for RAW comedy - Melbourne International Comedy Festvial's search for new talent, back in 2007 and winner of Foxtel Comedy Channel's Be A Comedian, and coming off her sold out "Dark Side Of The Womb" show at the Canberra comedy festivel in Febuary.
Ellen is effortlessly funny. Trevor Hendy declared Ellen the funniest comedian he’d ever seen. |
Mandy Nolan has just completed a national tour promoting her third memoir 'Home Truths', taking her ascerbic insights to the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Noosa and Caloundra. She is a columnist for the Byron Shire Echo, and writes regularly for The Hoopla. She has developed her own Humour Therapy and delivered a Commonwealth funded and researched project that made its way to International peer reviewed medical journals. She has appeared on ABC's Q&A, SBS's Mums The Word & About Women and is in demand as a corporate and club performer around the country. Her first memoir, What I Would Do If I Were You, was published in 2011, in 2014 she released 'Boyfriends We've all had and shouldn't Have'. Nolan believes in unleashing the voice of others, running regular Memoir Writing Workshops - and most recently she was featured on SBS's Insight for her Humour Therapy for People with Dementia. Nolan has also been chosen to perform for Outback Ladies in Durham Downs - a pampering and indulgence for rural women. Nolan is a favourite and regularly called on for private functions for Olivia Newton John who has declared that Mandy has 'a wicked wicked sense of humour!'
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