The humorous facet of grief: What the concern of dying younger taught Michelle Brasier about life

Michelle Brasier was so satisfied that she’d have a profitable profession in theatre and TV that she did not ever take into account having a backup plan.

“Possibly I used to be simply an boastful baby. I used to be so decided that this was my future,” the award-winning comic, actor, singer and author tells SBS Information.

“I used to be by no means spiritual or religious or something like that, however I all the time had this actual, I suppose, religion in myself. I had this concept that this was who I’d be and that was unstoppable.”

What she did not anticipate was that her success would come from her means to make individuals snort.

“I assumed that my success would come from my voice, which I feel in a manner it has. I feel it is opened a whole lot of doorways for me, nevertheless it took me a very long time to be like, ‘Oh yeah, I am truly humorous sufficient that if I do not sing in a TV present or no matter I am doing, I am nonetheless adequate to be there’.”

Michelle Brasier’s comedic chops have taken her everywhere in the world. Supply: Instagram / Michelle Brasier

Brasier’s “humorous bones” — comedy legend Shaun Micallef’s phrases — have landed her numerous spots on levels and screens all around the globe.

A frequent collaborator with sketch comedy group Aunty Donna — sometimes called “the lady one” — Brasier has gained awards at each the Melbourne and Sydney comedy festivals, featured on TV reveals equivalent to Mad As Hell, Thank God You are Right here and Koala Man, and is an everyday on the Edinburgh Fringe Pageant. This yr she even launched an album and carried out a sold-out run of reveals off-Broadway in New York.

However it took a big sacrifice, loss, and a complete lot of debt for her to turn out to be the artist and lady she is now.

‘Telenovela f***ery’

After a comparatively sheltered childhood in Wagga Wagga, which she regularly factors out is the teenager being pregnant capital of Australia, Brasier moved to Melbourne to check on the Victorian School of the Arts. On the finish of her first yr, she was instructed she “did not have sufficient ache from which to attract [on]” and was kicked out.

“They have been completely proper … I actually did not have sufficient life expertise. I imply, I used to be 18 years previous and I would by no means misplaced a factor on the earth,” she says.

They set me on an extremely essential path. If I had stayed there, I’d be not as artistic and I would not have a chip on my shoulder in the identical manner — and that chip has actually pushed me for a very long time.

Michelle Brasier

That ache and life expertise got here thick and quick: an accident with a heater the subsequent yr left her with third-degree burns to her legs. She was hospitalised for greater than a month and needed to be taught to stroll once more.

In 2008, when Brasier was 20, her father John died solely every week after receiving a pancreatic most cancers analysis. Nearly seven years later, her older brother Paul died from bowel most cancers aged simply 42 whereas she was acting on the opposite facet of the world.

Then got here the information that Brasier’s household historical past meant she had a 97 per cent probability of growing most cancers herself.

A family with a teenage son, younger daughter and baby in a church standing next to a priest.

Brasier (pictured as a child) misplaced her father John (second from proper) and brother Paul (far proper) to most cancers inside just a few years of one another. Supply: Instagram / Michelle Brasier

In some ways, she’s grateful for what she describes because the “telenovela f***ery of my twenties”.

It taught her that “nothing is for certain … nothing is a certain factor and nothing is stable”.

“We won’t all the time simply assume that each one the nice issues now we have will stick with us,” she says.

It is also made her “very pushy” in terms of guaranteeing the individuals in her life take care of themselves.

“If my brother had perhaps gotten assist earlier … he may’ve been capable of finding it [his cancer] earlier than it was stage 4, so I am simply actually aggressive with my associates who nonetheless smoke, or associates who do not go and get that mole checked or no matter.”

A woman posing against a graffitied wall

After being kicked out of drama faculty, Brasier has constructed a profitable profession in comedy, TV, and musical theatre. Supply: Provided / Paul Jeffers

Turning grief into comedy

Brasier channelled all of these emotions and classes about loss, grief and dwelling within the shadow of hereditary sickness into her 2021 comedy-cabaret present Common Bear.

“When you’re a storyteller of any sort, it is probably not a alternative… it is similar to, ‘When am I going to inform this story and the way am I going to inform this story?'” she says.

As a result of that is what we do, we share our tales in an effort to make individuals really feel much less alone.

Michelle Brasier

“We share our tales to really feel seen and to make individuals really feel seen by us, and I feel there is no manner that I may have stored it to myself — there is no manner.”

Regardless of the intense material, Common Bear is suffering from laughs: from anecdotes like how a music mix-up at her father’s funeral meant Johnny Money’s Ring of Hearth was enjoying as his coffin was lowered into the bottom, to the unique songs she performs along with her companion and collaborator Tim Lancaster concerning the “fingering shed” at her highschool and the way grieving individuals all the time get given a lot lasagne.

A woman in the foreground laughing while wearing a bear ear handband and black top and shorts. A man is sitting on a stool in the background holding a guitar.

Brasier (proper) has collaborated along with her companion Tim Lancaster (left) on a number of stage reveals, together with Common Bear. Supply: Instagram / Michelle Brasier

“I feel that being humorous permits you entry to individuals in a manner that being critical won’t. I feel that we belief individuals who make us snort, and that the individuals who make us snort are the individuals we instantly grant the facility to make us cry as a result of we open our hearts to them,” she says.

“I feel I’d not be as efficient if I wasn’t humorous … I would most likely be a stunning author and I would be most likely some unhappy poet who wrote these lovely songs and sang them and was form of annoying to be round and overly honest — and I’m all of these issues, however I get away with them as a result of I am humorous.”

Brasier’s recently-released memoir, My Brother’s Ashes are in a Sandwich Bag, additionally attracts on the highs and lows of her thirty-something years of life up to now, leaving readers shedding tears of disappointment one minute and screeching with laughter the subsequent.

It incorporates musings on household, intercourse, being an adolescent within the 2000s, womanhood, her nice loves — particularly canine and the Quick and the Livid franchise — and the way she does issues she’s afraid of as a result of she’s extra afraid she’ll die not having carried out them.

Canines, particularly Brasier’s black labrador Eva, are one one among her nice loves. Supply: Instagram / Michelle Brasier

It additionally presents agony aunt-style recommendation, equivalent to “In case you are tempted to get a boyfriend, first attempt rescuing a big canine and see how the canine hair on the sofa makes you are feeling”, in addition to playlists to take heed to in very particular conditions, together with “a wet day on a practice the place you are feeling lonely in a great way, such as you’re the lead in a film”.

“The e book is my best achievement as a result of I feel it shocked individuals. I feel individuals did not fairly know what to anticipate, after which they learn it they usually went, ‘Oh, f***’, and I am actually pleased with that. I am actually, actually proud,” Brasier says.

“The truth that it means one thing to individuals is de facto, actually fantastic. Those who I’ve by no means met, those that have by no means seen me in a present, those that I’ve by no means bodily been in the identical house with, and I feel that is actually particular.”

Doing good and (camp musical villain) evil

Exterior of her artistic work, she has additionally tried her hand at activism.

Final month, the federal authorities introduced it might ban life insurance coverage corporations from utilizing predictive genetic testing leads to their underwriting assessments. The transfer got here off the again of an advocacy marketing campaign that Brasier was concerned with, calling for an finish to discriminatory life insurance coverage costs and insurance policies for Australians with a household historical past of most cancers.

“You understand how individuals speak about utilizing your platform for good, I felt like I would truly carried out one thing — after which there was a part of me that was extremely delusional and was like, ‘Sorry, am I going to develop up and be a politician? Am I going to save lots of the world?’. I acquired very carried away very quick,” she says.

I simply hope that the federal government sticks to their weapons they usually do not again down. That is my concern.

Michelle Brasier

Regardless that she’s “actually, actually drained” and her most up-to-date vacation solely lasted three days, Brasier’s not planning on slowing down anytime quickly.

Her subsequent look will likely be on stage in Hayes Theatre Co and Griffin Theatre Firm’s co-production of Flat Earthers: The Musical — “a giant homosexual conspiracy concept love story set on the web” — which opens in Sydney this month.

Brasier (proper) is in rehearsals for her subsequent mission, Flat Earthers: The Musical. Supply: Provided / Griffin Theatre Firm

The character she performs is “very Disney villain camp,” she says, including “it is primarily like Woman Gaga, however she’s an evil supervillain”.

“I am so glad that I am lastly getting these roles as a result of for my complete life I’ve simply been wanting to do that, so I am actually comfortable to be in my villain period,” she says.

“Something actually large and camp is what I am interested by proper now. I’ve carried out subtlety, I’ve carried out thoughtfulness, give me a scorching second to only go for it.”

runs at Hayes Theatre Co from 11 October – 9 November.