There’s something of a symbiotic relationship between Canberra Comedy Festival and the huge Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which succeeds it annually.

This year, for instance, Canberra comedians Jacquelyn Richards and Trish Hurley, who had audiences rolling in the aisles with their show, Underestimated, at The Courtyard Studio in March, will be representing the Women’s Room initiative in Melbourne next week with their new show, Punchline.

When I catch up with them, I find that Tanya Losanno, the third in a comedy trio won’t be available, although she might pop in for a couple of shows.

This will be the second year Richards and Hurley have appeared in Melbourne, having started last year with small but enthusiastic audiences that rapidly grew to sellouts when people started coming back a second time and bringing their mums.

They don’t see themselves as being in the shadow of male comedians, and note that their audiences are broadly based and of mixed gender with a lot of younger men – but they are adamantly not playing to them.

“Never underestimate women; there’s a good reason the queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard,” they say.

“We try to make the comedy about us and I make jokes against me,” Richards says, while Hurley adds: “A lot of what I do is about parenting, about my reactions… it’s not about men and if it’s a good show, there’s nothing like it.”

Richards and Hurley met when they both enrolled in Canberra comedian Chris Ryan’s six-week comedy course a year or so ago.

Richards reports that her daughter Joanna was worried that, having given up choreographing local musicals, her mother wasn’t doing anything creative so enrolled her in the course and came along, too.

For her part, Hurley found that covid isolation brought on the blues so thought, “maybe the course will make me laugh, and anyway, it was a good excuse to leave the house and have a laugh”.

Terrifyingly, at the end of the course Ryan insisted that each participant had to do their own five-minute comedy piece – a long time in comedy. Neither was keen but Ryan put her foot down.

Somehow they both weathered it and, with the idea that  developing their own show would be an excuse to spend some time together, did so. Both are now successful veterans of the Raw Comedy competition.

Hurley says all her comedy is based on truth but, given that one of her comedy themes is that she doesn’t much like kids but somehow ended up being a mum, her son’s reaction, “you were funny mum, but it isn’t entirely true”, has got her thinking.

“It is based on truth but sometimes the punchlines will be exaggerated,” she admits.

Family has played an important part for Richards as well, with her son Alex working comedy gigs in New York and daughter Joanna, a prizewinning playwright, helping to refine her scripts and in the case of one joke she wanted to tell, commanding, “absolutely not, mum”.

One of the great things about the Comedy Festival is the intimate, almost familial feeling. They won’t be dressed up, just wearing jumpsuits. And they’re looking forward to a good time.

“We get a kick out of comedy,” Hurley says.

Punchline, Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Theory Bar, Melbourne April 9-20.