The video that made this comedian’s audience so angry, she deleted it

Welcome to CityChats, where Brisbane Times meets our city’s most interesting characters on our most iconic form of transport. This week, comedian Anisa Nandaula explains the video that made audiences the most angry, what the Brisbane comedy scene is really like and her favourite place to get a sweet treat.

Nandaula is running a few minutes late for our meeting at North Quay ferry stop, after forgetting how chaotic parking in Brisbane’s CBD can be.

What do you love about Brisbane?

I love the sun, I love the people. My favourite part of Brisbane is you can look at someone, smile, and now you’re just going to have a conversation.

I feel like that doesn’t happen in any other state. If you look at them [elsewhere], they’re like, ‘I don’t have any money. Leave me alone.’

I’m going to tell you my favourite Brisbane spot and don’t blow it up too much. It’s a Filipino bakery called Brigitts Bakeshop. It’s on Calam Road on the southside. It’s the best bakery on Earth. I dream about it.

What do you get from there?

Oh, so many things. They have an ube flan cake, it’s this big purple cake. Or you can get an ube flan drink, it’s a purple drink with the potato floating inside and it’s mouthwatering. They have different cookies, they have pandan cake – it’s got like six layers and they’re all different, so it’s an experience every time.

How has growing up in Brisbane influenced your comedy?

I think growing up in Brisbane has influenced my comedy in that I’m not scared to say what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, and I’m not worried to talk about race. That’s shaped my humour.

There’s not really much of a comedy scene [here], so the audiences are trash, so to get their attention, you really have to try and that’s shaped my stand-up.

A lot of Brisbane comedians, they either yell, they curse. We’re begging for the attention.

What do you think is unique about Brisbane audiences?

If they love you, they will laugh the hardest, they laugh so hard. Another thing that’s unique about them is they’re just not very comedy literate, so you have to spell out the joke, set up the punchline, whereas in Melbourne or anywhere else they’ll give you the space to play. Brisbane’s like, “if you’re not funny in two seconds, we’re out of there”.

How has your experience been performing in Brisbane? Have you had any moments where you’re like, “oh my gosh, this audience is not getting it”?

The whole first year. Really, the whole first and second years of doing stand-up, they didn’t get it, they didn’t like it. I got told to get off the stage. I got called a racist.

How do you come back from that?

Honestly, you cry and then you just keep on going. Because the intention of not just the Brisbane scene, but comedy in general, it is a space for white males. Historically, that is what it has been, and if I allow these people to chase me out, they’re winning. I’m a woman, I’m black and I’m not leaving.

I started doing stand-up in 2020, and before that I was doing poetry, so I’ve always been in the arts in some way or another.

I started doing poetry fresh out of high school. I was so lucky. I found it amazing. I did poetry and then I won a competition and through winning that competition, I was able to make poetry my full-time income. I was earning great money as a poet and there were a lot of opportunities for me.

And then when COVID hit and I had nothing, I was like, “oh, I’ll try stand-up for fun”, not thinking anything of it.

Have you found that social media has helped with building your audience and building your momentum?

Yeah, it’s changed my life. Before social media I was probably going to quit. Because it’s like, you’re getting nowhere. You’re losing money every night, you’re making negative $60.

I think it was like, 2020, maybe four years ago, I started [posting online] and it took maybe seven months to blow up. I was like, ‘this needs to work, otherwise I need to pick a different career path’.

What would a different career path look like for you?

Well, I have a law degree. I actually used to work in the city, right around here. So [I would] just work in the bank, work my way up, get a job in the legal field of the bank.

Is that something you ever want to do?

Absolutely not. It makes me want to stab myself in the cl--.

What joke of yours has received the most intense reaction?

I’ve had so many. Well, the most negative reaction was probably a joke that I told online where I was making fun of the accent, the Sydney accent, and I was making fun of it because it sounds Lebanese.

And I was like, “Why are white people sounding Lebanese?” And oh my god, they fried me online. They were like: “It’s cultural, everybody talks like that, we mix and that’s the culture of Sydney, but you wouldn’t know about culture, would you?”

And this old white man in my comments section said “you wouldn’t know about culture”, and I was like, “delete”.

You deleted the video?

Yeah, I think I deleted it.

Sometimes it’s just not worth the mental toll of looking at the comments and being like, “people aren’t getting it”.

And I think it’s changed, because in the beginning I got hate on every video. Hated, trolled, there was one video I made that got millions of views and then other people trolling me were getting millions of views from trolling me. But I think in the start, they didn’t know that I was a comedian.

So if you just see me talking, it sounds like a mean person, but I’m kidding, I’m just being silly.

What video has gotten the most positive reaction?

I do a joke where I take my wig off. It went super viral and people from all over the world were like “this is so funny”. It made me happy.

How have you enjoyed being on (comedy game show) Taskmaster?

Oh, that was so much fun, a dream come true. I’m so lucky I got to do it.

Is there anything else in the pipeline for you that you can share?

I’m recording my comedy special in Brisbane, and I’ll be releasing it by the time this airs. That’s so special to me. I started comedy in Brisbane, I’m recording it in Brisbane.

How was the Brisbane Comedy Festival?

A dream come true. So when I started stand-up, I remember I couldn’t even make it into the festival, obviously. I had to beg someone to let me open for them, and then I remember going into the main theatre, sitting down and seeing Melanie Bracewell, a female comedian, fill that place out.

[I thought] what if one day I could do that, and I held that dream in my heart, and when I did the festival, I got to play that room twice.

Well, four times, because they’re doing the special.

Tears, tears, tears. Tears.

That would have been such a cool full-circle moment.

Brisbane’s so hard, it’s so hard doing comedy in this place. No one cares.

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