The Bondi Hipsters have been a staple of Australian viral comedy for the best part of the last decade. In their biggest venture into the mainstream yet, they have teamed up with Stan to produce an original mockumentary in celebration, or retaliation, of the year that has been 2020.
Aptly titled Dom and Adrian: 2020, the film is about exactly what you think it would be; a tale of two USBJ’s (DJ’s with pre-loaded USB’s) who can’t seem to catch a break as 2020 throws every possible curveball it can in their direction, including conspiracy theories, natural disasters and of course the pandemic.
To truly understand what you’re getting yourself into with this Mockumentary, we need to explore who these guys are and why what they’re trying to do here is important.
Dom and Adrian are the alter egos of Nick Boshier and Christiaan Van Vuuren AKA The Bondi Hipsters. They found success in the early days of YouTube through the channel “Van Vuuren Bros.” On the channel they play a host of characters and create skits, sketches and musical parody videos, including some of their biggest hits such as “A Song About Birds”, “Australia’s Deadliest Animals” and a collaboration with Skit Box; “Activewear”, a song you couldn’t escape from upon its release 5 years ago. They even released a song “Bye Bye Donny – A Farewell to Donald Trump” that has amassed over 400,000 views in the past week.
What sets the comedy duo apart, especially their Bondi Hipster alter egos, is their knowledge of Australian culture and their willingness to understand specific sub-sections of that culture. There’s an understanding and respect that they have for the people they’re mocking, though they’re always inviting you to be in on the joke and never turning their audience off by isolating their style of humour; there’s something for everyone here.
A more recent endeavour of theirs, specifically of Van Vuuren’s, is the Web Series Over and Out. A cleverly crafted and always funny Series set in the post-apocalypse, it sees a couple trying to raise their kids in the high stakes environment of a Zombie wasteland. In the vain of A Quiet Place with less stylised horror and more of the hearty Aussie humour we’ve come to expect from them, it’s not a stretch to say this is what sold Stan on the idea of them being able to helm something on a larger budget with a marketable distribution platform. Van Vuuren is also set to direct a separate untitled Stan original film that is heavy in production at the moment.
Not to mention that Aunty Donna, an Australian comedy group with a similar trajectory to that of the Hipsters, has recently had a Netflix series drop to massive acclaim. If that’s anything to go off of, Stan may have backed the right horse with this one.
Moving back to Dom and Adrian: 2020, the reputation of the duo precedes them when it comes to the praise they have received from their collaborators. Nick Forward, the Chief Content Officer at Stan had this to say about the boys:
“We’re delighted to be working with Christiaan, Nick and the team. We’re huge fans of everything the boys have done and we’re really looking forward to being able to bring some laugher and lightness to 2020 – all through the lens of the Bondi Hipsters.”
The effort is also backed by Screen Australia who have deservedly high expectations of the boys;
“The Bondi Hipsters were part of that first wave of Australian online content creators to carve out a niche with online sketch comedy and we can’t wait to see them further develop these iconic characters as they cope with isolation and the challenges of 2020.”
If there’s one comedy duo fit to cap off 2020 with a special that’ll include heart and humour that will leave their audience feeling a little better about the year that’s been, it’s the Bondi Hipsters.
Dom and Adrian: 2020 drops on Stan on December 13. Watch the trailer here:
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