Bobby Davro shared the emotional truth of stand-up with Jacob Hawley
Jacob Hawley has revealed how Bobby Davro once schooled him in comedy.
Earlier this year, Hawley had enthused to the Always Be Comedy podcast about appearing on the same bill as Davro at a gig with a hen do in the audience.
Booked to do a 25-minute headlining slot, Davro ended up performing for two hours and left the venue arm-in-arm with the mother of the bride.
Then in the summer, Hawley received a phone call.
"I'm in my kitchen right, my kids are running around, I'm trying to make dinner and my washing machine is broken. I'm expecting a plumber" he told fellow stand-ups Vittorio Angelone and Mike Rice on their Guide To Parenting podcast.
"My phone rings, unknown number. I said 'hello?' And a voice went: 'Is this Jacob?'"
About to ask the repairman if needed help finding somewhere to park, Hawley was surprised to be asked: 'What's the most amazing thing you've ever seen?'
'What? Just get in here and fix the fucking washing machine!' Hawley thought to himself.
"'You said the most amazing thing you've ever seen was Bobby Davro'.
"'Right'.
"'This is Bobby Davro'."
It turned out that the old school comic's daughters had heard the ABC interview.
And Davro, who brought the show Everything Is Funny If You Can Laugh At It to this year's Edinburgh Fringe, was "really sweet" Hawley told Angelone and Rice.
"I mean, he's giving me advice, he's asking how my career's going.
"And the best bit, he's just sort of telling me how he does what he does. And I'm a fan, I was loving it. He goes to me:
"'Thing is Jacob, audiences like it if there's a bit of heart, a bit of feeling in your work, you know, something they can emotionally connect to.
"'I've got daughters Jacob. Have you got children?'"
"'Uh-huh'.
"'The thing is Jacob, you know I was so busy when I was younger. I was working so much that me and my eldest, we kind of lost contact.
"'I was just doing shows, I was busy. You know I love the shows. You love the shows?'
"'Yeah.'"
"'You got a daughter?'
"'Uh-huh.'"
"'Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions with work and your kids. A few years later, I was performing in the same town that my daughter lives in now. I saw her, I met up with her for the first time in ... I hadn't seen her in years, we'd kind of fallen out, we drifted apart ... I met her in a restaurant and I walked up to her and I said: 'Let me give you a kiss''".
Davro told him he'd then kissed her on the cheek. And "'she'd held her face and he said: 'Darling, don't rub it off, it's a kiss from your old dad.'"
"'My daughter said to me, 'I'm not rubbing it off Dad, I'm rubbing it in cos I've missed you so much.'"
"And I'm just like, 'wow!'" Hawley marvelled.
"'If you've got any stories about you and your daughter Jacob,'" Davro advised him, "'you should tell those stories because audiences like this kind of thing.'"
"And I was like, 'right!'
"Then he goes, 'if you don't have any stories like that, just make something up.
"'I made that one up!'"