Five comedians sit down for a coffee with a journalist.
And how similar that sentence appears to the set-up for a stock standard one-two-punch joke should tell you everything that you need to know about how the next 27 minutes went.
It starts with the local kid. Elliott Stewart came up through the local stand-up scene to open the Newcastle Comedy Club. He's surrounded by visiting comics from Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney as we find a seat at Civic Theatre ahead of the Newcastle Comedy Festival launch later that night.
"It's really funny," he said of being surrounded by the other stand-ups, "It's a really funny time."
"This is actually the first time Elliott has hung out with other comedians," the acerbic Sydneysider Daniel Muggleton cuts in, setting the tone.
For the next half an hour, if there's a joke that can be made - a bit that could get a laugh - it's more than fair game; it's required. Making an audience laugh is one thing; making a comedian laugh is something else.
"I think most people in comedy have ADHD, and that makes for fun," Canberra's Chris Ryan said, "We can't help but look for fun; that's why we do this job. But it's not like when normal people get together, like accountants or whoever."
"Real estate agents." the comic who goes by 'My Cousin Vlad' on stage adds.
"I would assume real estate agents getting together would be significantly more fun than comedians." (Muggleton never misses a beat). "They can afford more than one bag."
"We don't all use drugs, Daniel," Ryan says, sipping on her thick shake.
"Well, that's definitely going to make it in," Festival organiser Andrew Milos says, eyeing the rolling voice note in the middle of the table. He looks like a man who has spent the last week herding cats through a three-ring circus; he's in his element.
"I get such a thrill out of it," he told me earlier in the morning. "It's my favourite time of the year, and I think that everyone else involved loves coming to Newcastle. I try to make the environment as friendly as possible. Everyone's mates with each other."
In a matter of hours, the near-month-long string of stand-up shows from over a dozen comics was set to kick off with a launch party on Friday night, June 28, before the signature showcase gala on Saturday at Civic Theatre.
The comedians around the table have come from all corners to find comedy. Vald was a real estate agent; "I made 80 grand a year, and I hated every minute of it". Ryan came to comedy when she was 38 with two kids. Elliott is a product of the open mic scene. And the Melbourne stand-up Kirsty Webeck skipped the introduction and wrote an hour's special after attending one comedy workshop.
"I did a comedy workshop for a week that didn't work," she said, "I didn't know about open mic rooms, so I wrote a one-hour show that would have been terrible. I did that three times, and that was enough training for me; I did the Melbourne International Comedy Festival."
Muggleton's material comes from a process of brutal refinement; "I'll be complaining about something to a friend and say it with enough conviction to think that strangers would pay $35 for it, and then improve it.
"I inflict the show on Perth and Adelaide for the price as Sydney and Melbourne even though it's significantly worse ... but halfway through Melbourne, it's decent. Then, hopefully, something happens in Sydney, and it's good. Then, I'll go to Edinburgh, and I might get three lines out of a whole month of doing the show every day in a smelly Scottish basement, and then I'll come back, tour, and start again.
Then, with a fixed, deadpan gaze: "It's important to point out that I feel no accomplishment by the end of it all. Just dread."
"Keep talking like that, Dan, and everyone will want to be a comedian," Webeck chimes in.
"I'm trying to get rid of the competition, Kirsty. You made it sound quite easy; I took a course, and I'm at the Festival, baby! I didn't look back! Boom. Next!"
"I started at 30," Webeck rebuts, "I wasn't like a deluded 15-year-old."
"I was a deluded 17-year-old," Stewart swoops on the line. "I was doing open mic nights down the road; it was $2 taco night at Crown and Anchor. Everyone was there for a taco, and then some guy would be like, 'It's comedy time!' and everyone would have a go."
"And did they turn the TVs off? You bet they didn't!" Muggleton says, "There should be some entertainment in the room."
"Five or six years later, we opened the Newcastle Comedy Club," Stewart said.
"Elliott learned from all the mistakes," Webeck adds, "Now, he gets them in with $1 tacos."
The common theme between the group is that they were drawn to their art almost by necessity. It wasn't that they chose stand-up because it seemed like a career; there are better ways to get rich. They do it because it's what they want to do; they do it because it's theirs.
"One of my favourite quotes about doing comedy properly is that you have to do it long enough that you forget what it's like to have a boss." Muggleton says, falling into another run, "That's what the mindset has to be. If you're doing this with the idea that someone might take it all away from you, then you should go and be a real estate agent.
"You do this for the freedom. Some comedians I know want to wake up early, and I'm like, why? Are you out of your mind? It's like these people who are working from home; they drive me crazy. I took a severe pay cut in order to be available during the day. And now, because of this stupid disease, you can do it too? Get out of my cafe; it's 11am; this is my time."
"I love Tired Dan," Vlad jokes, "He's the best."
"I've had a coffee-and-a-half, and I'm ready to go!' he says.
"I should have got you a small," Ryan says.
The Newcastle Comedy Festival kicked off on Friday, June 28, and runs through July 20. Details are available via the Festival's website.
Asked earlier in the day how Newcastle fares against the capital cities and their own comedy festivals, Milos was emphatic:
"We've got better theatres and I personally think that, yeah, we've got some absolutely stacked talent that we're putting together for this year," he said.
"This is the best that the Comedy Festival has ever sold. Ever. And I think that's attributed to the fact that people just want to go out and enjoy a laugh.
"And now that the fact that the Comedy Festival, and the comedy club exists, and audiences can see their repeat comedians coming back each time; they've got their favourites.
"This is Newcastle through and through. And it's showing off the talent that we have got and the talent that exists in Australia."
