Why Female-Driven Comedy Was Always At The Forefront For Skit Box

It began as so many creative endeavours do, with a bit of observation and a bit of alcohol.

Stand-up comedian Greta Lee Jackson and actors Sarah Bishop and Adele Vuko knew each other through their different circles of friends and their intersecting circles of the Australian entertainment scene - a bit of freelancing at a production company here, a collaboration on a short film there. And one night, back in 2012, they all found themselves at an event where projects were being announced and cocktails were being poured.

"We were a little bit tipsy," laughed Vuko. "And we were seeing all these people, mainly guys, doing all this great comedy and we felt really inspired. We turned to each other and said 'Maybe we should do this!'"

Not just your regular old sketch comedy, however. The trio resolved to "work together to make some great girl comedy" - after all, says Vuko, while the online sketch-comedy scene in Australia is thriving now, four years ago it was difficult to name one all-female outfit cracking jokes and getting laughs on the internet.

"We naturally gravitated towards making comedy from a female perspective that challenges the usual opinions, stereotypes and archetypes of women."

And so Skit Box was born, and the troupe quickly started turning out web series, short films and musical-comedy sketches, including their most popular to date, 'Activewear' (more than 4.5 million views on YouTube so far), which lampoons the myriad activities one can do in a sporty outfit - getting coffee, waiting for the bus, buying a different activewear ensemble, not exercising.

Their "twisted, female-driven comedy" caught the eye of the ABC, which commissioned six episodes of Skit Box's sketch series Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am as part of the Fresh Blood initiative (Melbourne comedy troupe Fancy Boy also got the call-up).

But just what is Skit Box? Who are these women? How do they complement one another? And just what are they out to tell us? Allow Vuko, a NIDA-trained actor, writer and producer whose credits include Underbelly: Razor, Not Suitable for Children and Bondi Hipsters (her partner and "baby daddy" is the Hipsters' Christiaan Van Vuuren), to explain.

"The three of us have different backgrounds and different tastes," Vuko says of her Skit Box comrades. "Greta is an encyclopaedia of weird, absurd comedy - she loves Tim and Eric - and she could have a PhD in true crime - serial killers are her passion. But she also a My Little Pony collection, so there you go. Sarah has this incredible depth and breadth of filmmaking knowledge - she's across everything from indie film to what's happening on Netflix. And I'm somewhere in the middle - I love Australia's Next Top Model as much as I love Black Mirror."

When the three women started working together, however, they found a common voice.

"We naturally gravitated towards making comedy from a female perspective that challenges the usual opinions, stereotypes and archetypes of women," says Vuko.

"When we were brainstorming sketches, that's where it came from. Our first popular sketch had women harassing construction workers with inappropriate relationship catcalls. And that became the basis of what we did going forward - we'd flip various situations and circumstances to show that what women have to put up with is not always OK."

Creatively Jackson, Bishop and Vuko were simpatico, but it also helped that their behind-the-scenes skills were equally complementary.

"We had this triangle of expertise," smiles Vuko. "It can be hard to organise a shoot or edit material or do the marketing if you don't have that background. But I have a background in production coordination, Greta was an editor and Sarah came from marketing so she handled all of that."

Being that kind of self-contained, self-sufficient unit with the ability to put together their own material and get it seen via viral word of mouth (how many of your social-media mates put 'Activewear' on their page? Plenty, right?) has helped a lot of artists get their foot in the door, so to speak. "In Australia, I know the ABC and SBS scour YouTube looking for new talent," says Vuko. "You can be an overnight sensation, have people here and overseas contacting you to ask what kind of show you want to make."

And nailing exactly what kind of show Skit Box wanted Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am to be was of paramount importance to Vuko, Bishop and Jackson when they were commissioned to make their ABC series, which will air on ABC 2 and the iview platform.

"When we were in the writers' room figuring out what we wanted from this series, that was when it was important to figure out what we want to really say," says Vuko.

"The sketch comedy format can be hit and miss, and we didn't want arbitrarily chosen sketches - 'Let's do something about this!' - that weren't meaningful. It could be funny but if it didn't strike a chord we tended to stay away from it.

"We made a conscious decision in the early stages to make this show for women - it's written by women, directed by women, starring women...well, mostly, and it's targeted at women."