Darryl, Vinnie and Berrick have enviable mullets. The best friends are part lost-boy bogans and part wanna-be drama nerds whose passion for making Darryl’s Shakespearean masterpiece, called Thy – Thus – ‘Twas, nearly compensates for their mother-son issues and lack of talent.
They are also the stars of the Travelling Sisters’s 2020 lockdown web series 'Meet the Mullets'. If you haven’t seen the series – I hadn’t – it takes a while to understand that it isn’t a sketch show but an ongoing story. Not that it makes it any less engaging, but Mullets fans in the audience were straight into the story while newcomers took some time to understand the world.
The Travelling Sisters are Lucy Fox, Ell Sachs and Laura Trenerry. They met at uni in Queensland, studied the Gaulier clown school in France and toured the UK and Europe before setting in Melbourne. Directed by Kimberly Twiner, their combination of exaggerated controlled physicality and deeply developed characters is as much a discussion of gender as it is an absurd story about misfits who have found their tribe of three. The trio work together like they should never be apart, and their wonderfully unique characters are so authentic that they transcend their own parodies.
The sisters also play the boys' mothers, whose behaviours and attitudes ask and answer many questions about their respective children.
The Travelling Sisters continue to develop clowning that never settles for an easy gag and builds characters who are easy to laugh at but even easier to love. So don’t be surprised to find yourself reconsidering your hairstyle and cheering for the shining magnificence of a gold tarpaulin.