By NOEL MURPHY
GEELONG comic Kate McLennan is hot property right now, red-hot property.
Her online cooking comedy The Katering Show, with mad mate Kate McCartney, drew a million hits last weekend and launched the unsuspecting duo into the limelight.
“Somethings certainly happened, we don’t know just how but we’re very pleased,” McLennan told the Independent.
“We had a ball writing the script, it was lots of fun taking swipes at trends in foodie culture.
“It took a while to find the characters for it. We’ve been friends a long time and wanted to catch our natural rapport but also have our separate personalities.
“The characters we’ve taken on are not too far from our own personalities.
“Originally it was just going to be us but then we heightened our characters. I was becoming quite a monster and I thought ‘I don’t know if I want to be that’ so I toned it back down.”
The result — a smug foodie fully conversant with all the trappings of her culinary genre, but offset by a diarrhoea-prone food intolerant — makes for rivetting if irreverent comedy.
The Katering Show garnered more than a million hits last weekend as soon its six irreverent episodes hit the ether.
The powerful response saw the couple on prime time TV’s The Project during the week and pondering the future’s possibilities.
The surprise smash hit wasn’t really such a surprise, it’s bloody funny. It’s also fully politically incorrect, a touch slapstick, contemporarily profane and driven by healthy doses of deliberate stupidity – replete with the classic comic elements.
The galloping gourmands – frenemies for the main part — tackle such issues as ethical eating, food porn, quitting sugar, Christmas and Mexican meals. They road test pressure cookers and the celebrated Thermomix – generally with disastrous results but just getting to those results is little short of miraculous.
McLennan and McCartney might sound like some McBeatles songwriting duo but the Geelong comedian says they’re a good pair and looking to further their Katering efforts.
One catch that might slow matters a tad is mcCartney’s impending childbirth, about six weeks from now.
We filmed back in September when she was six months pregnant but we managed to hide her baby bump,” Mclennan said.
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EARLIER in the program, Kate McLennan revealed her hometown inspirations to GC magazine’s CHERIE DONNELLAN
As a year 11 student at Belmont High School, Kate McLennan dragged best friend Sally with her to a Barwon Theatre Company acting class.
The class failed to pull Sally into the limelight but Kate answered the call of the arts – although in a different craft than her initial ambition of acting.
In awe of theatre teacher Caroline Morris, who by day taught drama at Christian College, Kate set her sights on entering VCE drama classes.
Without drama available at Belmont High, Kate enrolled at Christian College, just a dad-drive away.
Her talent earned place in performing arts at University of Ballarat, setting Kate on the road to becoming a “serious actor”.
But she was continually cast in comic roles – a career plot twist for which she’s now grateful.
“It took someone else to tell me I was good at comedy for me to get it,” Kate recalls.
Roles in sketch and solo shows followed, with Kate utilising her drama skills to hone comedy characters.
She debuted as a professional comedy actress with multiple roles in The Debutante Diaries, her 2006 story of about angst-ridden teenagers preparing for their deb.
The show was a hit at Melbourne Fringe festival, winning Best Comedy and earning Kate a Best Newcomer award.
Despite the success, she initially worried the festival debut would become her career swansong.
“The show had all these sad bits in it and I thought, ‘This is a drama, not comedy’. I asked to change it from the comedy section to theatre but couldn’t … and on opening night I was expecting to be doing this serious show about teenage angst and the politics of debutante balls but the audience was laughing.
“Lucky I didn’t change it. There was the sense that I was so new that I had no idea the show was even funny.”
The organisers offered Kate a spot on a roadshow promoting the festival.
Along the way she emerged from behind her characters in The Debutante Diaries to unveil Kate McLennan, stand-up comedian.
“I had a 15-minute spot on the show, so instead of coming out in character and doing my usual routine I decided to talk about myself for the first three minutes.
“I thought, ‘I quite like this’, so that’s where my stand-up comedy started.”
Stand-up is “quite addictive”, Kate says.
She enjoys making people laugh despite feeling “sick in the stomach” before each show.
The laughter keeps bringing her back to the stage.
Kate acknowledges her parents – who parents know as Gayle and Pockets – for much of her comedic inspiration.
She lovingly describes her father as “massive attention seeker” who provides much material.
“A couple of years ago I got out a notepad while at mum’s and dad’s and started writing down everything dad said. He’d say something hilarious and then turn to me and say, ‘Don’t write that down. It’s not funny, it’s my life’, but he’s secretly always loved it.
“After the last show I did for the comedy festival, which was a character show, dad said to me he was disappointed he wasn’t in the show. There was a character in it that was absolutely based on him but he didn’t quite see that.”
Mum’s a little less enthusiastic, Kate reveals.
“When I say things about mum, she’s like, ‘I don’t know whether I like you doing material about me’,” Kate says, imitating her mother.
Despite the constant jokes about being raised in Belmont under a shrine-like poster of Gary Ablett on a living room wall, Kate clearly maintains a close relationship with her family.
She tells of moving back in with mum and dad after a traumatic break-up in 2010.
The aged 30, her friends wondered how she coped living with “nagging” parents again but Kate admits taking comfort in letting them “take care of me” again.
However, her wounded heart failed to elicit too much sympathy.
“The day after I moved in my mum and sister decided it was a great idea to take me to a bridal expo,” Kate laughs – now.
“My sister was getting married and here I was at this expo completely miserable, with women thinking I was getting married. People kept asking me about my wedding – ‘When is it?’, ‘What flowers are you having?’, ‘Who’s the lucky guy?’.
“But I was aware at the time in the back of my mind that this was actually quite funny; good for stand-up.
“I spin tragedy into something funny.”
Returning home also gave Kate a new appreciation of Geelong after spending the previous decade as a resident of inner-suburban Melbourne.
“When I was a teenager I don’t know whether I saw as much good stuff about Geelong. There are nicer parts to Geelong than I remember: the waterfront is lovely and there are lovely cafes and restaurants, nice bars – things I appreciate more as an adult.”
However, Kate’s Geelong-time has been drying up amid a tight schedule of stand-up appearances, voiceover work and development of a TV show pilot.
Recent gigs have included voicing a character for ABC TV children’s show The Flamin’ Thongs and a fortnight of two stand-up shows a night in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Kate is “going like the clappers” to clear the decks for six precious weeks travelling through North America and Mexico with boyfriend Joel.
“I’ve been explaining to him that he’s not going to see me for the next six week but then it’s you and I in a van together for six weeks,” she giggles.
