Aaron Gocs Reveals He Loves Parodying Old Aussie Series Like 'Blue Heelers'

The 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival marks the first such event since the formerly Brisbane-based comedian Aaron Gocs made the city his home, so the man with the memorable mullet will be going all out with new show Classic Stitch Up.

"It's just kinda like hopefully the best jokes and stories that I've got, like a 'best of', and we're just going to have a lot of fun," the affable funnyman offers. "I think a few people coming along maybe think I'm a bit one-dimensional and hopefully I can show them I've got some other strings to my bow."

Classic Stitch Up is also the name of one of the viral videos for which he's become renowned, and Gocs has been delighted with his recent online traction.

"It takes time to realise that there's humour in the mundaneness of suburban life."

"I'd actually just been doing stand-up for many years and then decided to give the internet a go and it's worked out really well," he continues. "That's one of the reasons I moved down to Melbourne to start working with people - when I was in Brisbane I just did it all myself with a webcam so it was pretty lo-fi, and now I'm here I'm hoping to do some stuff that's better produced.

"We just did a Heartbreak High parody on the weekend - I was a pretty big fan of that show growing up, and I believe that you can parody something and it doesn't mean you're mocking it if your heart's in the right place. We're going to try and parody nostalgic old Aussie series like Water Rats and Blue Heelers and that sort of thing, Round The Twist. Maybe Recovery would be good too."

Gocs has even avoided the dreaded online trolls (so far), mainly, he believes, because his comedic style is relatively inoffensive.

"I don't attract too many dickheads," he laughs. "I think with my style I'm not really too mean to anyone - I'm not trying to be too political or change the world or anything. My style's pretty natural, and it's evolved over the years because I started pretty young and then just as you accumulate life experience you get more to talk about in your stand up. I think I started when I was 20 or 21 and you've got nothing to talk about then really, so was all one-liners like your Carl Barron sorta thing, just a bit of wordplay.

"These days I talk more about private, personal stuff because things happen in your life that are interesting - I talk about the kids and jobs and just suburban life. It takes time to realise that there's humour in the mundaneness of suburban life, and people respond because there's not too many people out there talking publicly about work-life and takeaway food. I just try and be as funny as I can, and hopefully a bit different."