Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Michelle Brasier – Comedian Michelle Brasier was once told by a doctor that given her family history she had a 97 per cent chance of getting cancer.
Her response – to laugh in the face of death.
She’s toured the world with her acclaimed stage show Average Bear, an intimate and comical insight into her life, which leaves audiences howling with laughter one minute and drying tears the next, as she jokes about keeping her brothers’ ashes under the sink in a zip lock sandwich bag and getting sick of eating all the home baked lasagnas given to her family after her dad’s death.
“Comedy is good friend to grief. Physiologically laughing, crying and singing are all really close, and so I’m always on the edge of one of them and I like it, I like that” Brasier says.
But off-stage Michelle’s grappling with the serious side of living with a fear of dying young from cancer.
As she contemplates her future, she discovers that genetic testing may not give her all the answers she needs.
So, she’s learning to embrace uncertainty.
“They say that I’m young, I have a head start. And so, my body is a temple and I go to yoga and they say that I will die young. And so, I party and I do this for a job and I haven’t consolidated my super. And maybe everyone should live like me. Yoga in the morning, whisky in the evening”.
Producers: Kirstin Murray & Vanessa Gorman.
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview – Monday 26 August, 2024 at 8:00pm
Media Release – ABC
TV Central ABC content HERE
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Michelle Brasier
