It\u2019s just gone 9 o\u2019clock on a moody Autumn morning in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Kew, just east of the city. \u201cI only moved here because I couldn\u2019t afford Carlton,\u201d says Celia Pacquola as if to explain herself when we meet outside the 1940s clinker brick apartment she shared with her best friend.<\/p>\n
But when the pandemic descended and lockdowns were enforced six years ago \u2013 almost to the week \u2013 the proximity to the winding, gum-lined paths of the Yarra Bend trails were a welcome balm. Originally hailing from the verdant hills of the Yarra Valley north-east of Melbourne, Pacquola imagined her city life to be \u201cyoung and hip and cool\u201d \u2013 like Carlton in the inner-north. \u201cI still don\u2019t identify as being from Kew. But it\u2019s where I\u2019ve ended up. At least it\u2019s green\u201d She shrugs off her ambivalence and we head off.<\/p>\n
The walk we\u2019re embarking on, Pacquola explains, is just one of many routes that she walked, danced (rehearsing for her stint on Dancing with the Stars) and during a particularly ambitious period jogged on alongside the circumstantial family unit she found in her flat mate and their two rescue dogs during that \u201cdark time, which we do not discuss\u201d.<\/p>\n
Since she first picked up a mic two decades ago Pacquola has become one of Australia\u2019s most well known and beloved comics. From one woman comedy specials, to her performances on popular Australian series like Offspring, Utopia and Rosehaven, (which she co-created with longtime collaborator Luke McGregor) Pacquola\u2019s brand of self-effacing physical comedy has earned her Logies, ACTAAs, Writer\u2019s Guild awards and even an Aria nomination, as well as her reputation as an endearing comedic every-woman.<\/p>\n
Pacquola\u2019s veneer drops away when talking about her three-year-old child. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
In person she\u2019s just as snappy as she is on stage, gag-ready as the conversation leaps haphazardly from one topic to the next. It\u2019s only when speaking of her three-year-old that the comic\u2019s veneer drops away. I mention my own teenage daughter and her mood instantly shifts from entertainer to wrapt audience \u201cI have so many questions.\u201d We briefly discuss the perils of kids and tech use before she launches into an anecdote about a homemade swing set.<\/p>\n
We stride along Studley Park road; traffic whirs past as Pacquola reminisces about her whirlwind romance with her partner photographer Dara Munnis. \u201cI always thought I was going to be single forever and absolutely happily so. I just thought, that\u2019s my life. I tell jokes and I\u2019m single, that\u2019s fine.\u201d But, she says, \u201cunfortunately\u201d Dara was very charming.<\/p>\n
double quotation markI\u2019m talking shit about him up and down the country. It\u2019s pretty fucked, but he\u2019s OK with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was walking along here the first time we ever spoke,\u201d she suddenly recalls. The pair met on the apps and spent months texting, her online reconnaissance led her to believe he was Italian. \u201cTurned out he\u2019s Irish, I\u2019m just crap at flags\u201d the aforementioned phone call may or may not have been the moment his true nationality was first revealed. She can\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n
One thing she, Dara, and anyone who attends her show, Gift Horse, at this year\u2019s comedy festival won\u2019t be forgetting anytime soon is the ill-conceived gift he presented her with for her birthday last year.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 20 years since Pacquola\u2019s first comedy gig. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cDid I want a kayak?\u201d she stops on the noisy verge. \u201cLet me put it this way,\u201d she says,straining to compete with the din of the traffic. \u201cOn the morning of my 42nd birthday when I walked into the loungeroom and saw an INFLATED inflatable kayak, that was probably the first time I ever used the word kayak.<\/p>\n
The significance of the kayak is the starting point of the show. \u201cIt\u2019s about gift giving and relationships and friendships and what it means when someone gives you a gift that feels wrong and about who knows you and what you know about each other\u201d<\/p>\n
Pacquola\u2019s stand-up has always leaned personal and frankly she\u2019s surprised she\u2019s found someone who\u2019s OK with that. \u201cIf you\u2019re in a relationship and you give your partner a present they don\u2019t like, at worst it ends up in the family WhatsApp group. I\u2019m talking shit about him up and down the country. It\u2019s pretty fucked, but he\u2019s OK with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to the couple\u2019s daughter though, she says that approach may shift. Joking about her own experience of pregnancy and new motherhood she reckons is fair game, but so far, however, she is resisting the temptation to share the trials and tribulations of their own child \u2013 \u201cbut it\u2019s gonna be awkward when she gets to an age when she starts doing funny things.\u201d<\/p>\n
As we thump down the gravel trail, through a corridor of lanky blackgums towards Yarra Boulevard she considers how other aspects of motherhood will unfurl for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there will be a time when she\u2019ll tell me to go away and she hates me. It\u2019s going to really upset me but I know you have to be strong and not be their friend and be their mum. I\u2019m just dealing with the problems as they occur. But it\u2019s wonderful right now. She believes magic is real, and she\u2019s really into me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The taking it day by day is something Pacquola takes seriously. \u201cAs soon as we pass one milestone, that information is dead to me. It\u2019s gone,\u201d she says. \u201cI used to know everything about breast milk and sterilising shit, and now, no idea, gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an adventurous pre-schooler on her hands her current crucible is feigning calm. \u201cI\u2019m a gasper mum,\u201d she says. \u201cI got it from my own mother, but it\u2019s such a useless parental warning system because it does nothing to stop the dangerous thing from happening or protect anyone. It just scares the shit out of whoever you\u2019re standing next to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pacquola had assumed that \u2018all the mum things\u2019 would magically be downloaded to her brain upon becoming pregnant. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I called her right now and told her we were out walking, she\u2019d tell me not to get hit by a car,\u201d she explains. In the same breath she says her mum is one of the bravest people she\u2019s ever met. When she left Pacquola\u2019s father in her mid-forties \u201cshe went travelling, learnt how to juggle, did public speaking, got her pilot\u2019s license.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gesturing broadly at the native shrubbery we\u2019re wandering past, she adds \u201cshe\u2019d know what all these plants are called too\u201d. Pacquola had assumed that \u201call the mum things\u201d would magically be downloaded to her brain upon becoming pregnant. As that disappointingly did not occur she finds herself more in awe of her mother than ever. \u201cShe has the answers to things. She knows so much stuff\u2026 like how to do tax and how to get a stain out and all of this other stuff that I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making our ascent to the lookout, Pacquola is mulling the wide angle of her own life and career. \u201cIt\u2019s been 20 years since my first gig, 10 years since I hosted the gala. These even numbers feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking out over Melbourne\u2019s hazy city skyline she prods the show\u2019s central themes some more, while pointedly refusing to give away any punchlines. In a world that feels so chaotic and fragmented it\u2019s our connections with other humans that matter now more than ever she muses, careful to deliver the philosophical kernel with a hint of mock gravitas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the most trivial show I\u2019ve ever done\u201d she hastens to add, but on a deeper, \u201csecret\u201d level it\u2019s an interrogation of one of the most revealing ways we communicate with our nearest and dearest. A present speaks a thousand words, so what the hell was Dara trying to say with this kayak?<\/p>\n
She has theories, but she won\u2019t tell me, that would spoil the show. \u201cIt\u2019s so ridiculous that the biggest hook is, come and find out if I took up kayaking.\u201d<\/p>\n