Hot Department’s Honor Wolff and Patrick Durnan Silva are two comedic superstars that are on a mission to get everyone’s blood flowing. They’ve won Sydney Comedy Festival’s Director’s Choice Award, and their webseries, Dark Web, won an award at London Web Fest as well as Best Australian comedy (Melbourne Web fest), Best Web series and Best Comedy series (Sydney Web fest).
Ahead of their tour, we had a chat to them about sketch comedy, when it’s okay to let your bush go free, and when to take a step back. As Patrick couldn’t make it, here’s what Honor had to say about it all.
THIS INTERVIEW IN SHORT
Daniela Koulikov at FUSE Magazine explores insights from Honor Wolff, one of the creators of the hit comedy show 'Hot Department'. We delve into their humble and hilarious beginnings and what makes their unique writing process stand out. Learn how they navigate the boundaries of humour while maintaining intelligence in their comedy and the creative process behind this hugely successful duo.
I’m keen to chat with you about so many things. So, tell me about yourselves, Pat and you as a duo.
Pat and I went to drama school together, that’s where we met. Originally, he’s from Brazil, he grew up near the Amazon. I’m from Melbourne, Surrey Hills, and we met in drama school in Ballarat. It was a chance meeting, that we both went to the same drama school, and clicked over our same sense of humour. We studied acting, a Bachelor of Performing Arts (acting).
You met in university; how did you start Hot Department?
The acting school was quite small; you had about twenty to thirty people in your year. We ended up living together, me, Pat and two of our other best friends. From second year onwards, we’d keep each other up until 3am, pissing off our housemates at the time. We would just keep sneaking into each other’s rooms to do bits, playing characters and keeping each other up, which was bad because we’d have uni at 8am! But we just couldn’t stop!
We would also get separated in class as well. We’d be doing movement class, and him and I would break into weird characters, do dance moves, or just start slow dancing, as though we were in a 90s movie. We just wanted to make each other crack up as much as possible. Some teachers supported it; some would ask us to stop disrupting the class.
After uni, we were in a theatre group together, called The Very Good Looking Initiative. Pat and our friend, Elliott, started that, and I was there from the first show. I had a moment where I thought, I should be a partner in this! For a while after that, we made this ‘troll-y’ theatre. We were drawn to diverting norms in those kinds of settings. It felt like we were trolling Melbourne theatre, to make fun of that. It made Pat and I realise that the weird, funny stuff was the stuff we loved to create, so we ended up making a sketch show, called Cull, which was about culling your Facebook friends.
It went well! We won an award at Adelaide Fringe, so we kept touring it until we made our next show.
What inspired your next show? I’m assuming that’s Hot Department?
At that point, we were The Very Good Looking Initiative. After that, we were approached by a manager, and so we changed our name to Hot Department, because it wouldn’t be including Elliott, as he moved away. Hot Department, as in, we’re the hot department of The Very Good Looking Initiative. Now we’re up to our eighth show.
Oh, I love that! Run me through your writing process.
It’s quite similar to how Pat and I would make each other laugh at uni. It really is just us staying up for a long period of time, trying to make the other person laugh with random ideas. We’ll spit ball off each other and devise a sketch. It feels like we understand each other, like we have twin-speak. We get so hyped for each other’s ideas. That’s why it’s really weird when one of us doesn’t understand the other’s idea, it makes it feel like you’re disagreeing with me on purpose. We used to take it quite personally. Sometimes, though, we sit down separately and write a sketch for one another. We know what the other person can do, what they’re good at, and it’s really fun to see them perform it.
How do you balance pushing boundaries with your material, without crossing the line?
That’s something we’ve developed over the last 8 years. Like with any kind of comedy, you try not to punch down. We love to be the butt of the jokes. People have seen sketches that we do, like Stepmum Blues, which is a psycho-surreal, David Lynch-esque type of sketch.
It’s second-hand nature to be like, what’s funny and what isn’t? For example, I play a mum whose husband has left her, and her daughter is having a sleepover, but they aren’t going to sleep. I keep coming out in a dressing gown, telling the girls to go to sleep...
Then, at one point, I’m wearing a full flesh outfit, and I’ve only cut out my boobs, my bush and my butt. That’s funnier to me, than being completely nude.
Being a woman on stage in comedy, and being fully nude, doesn’t seem as funny, because of social context of sexualising women’s bodies. Whereas, there, I’m in more control. I’ve made an obvious choice to be wearing this grotesque outfit.
Anyway, we all have social cues as to what’s funny and what isn’t, so if you’re dealing with something like sex, you need to make sure that you’re in control.
Usually by the time we do sexual jokes, we’ve earned the trust of the audience, and they trust that we won’t take anything too far or make them uncomfortable.
What have your experiences been like as a woman in sketch comedy? Do you think they’ve been quite different to Patrick’s?
Yes, and no. The weirdest thing that’s happened a couple of times, was that people would just congratulate Pat on the show, and certain sketches. Some of people’s favourite sketches that Pat was in, were ones that I had written for him. They’d say, oh, Pat, the sketch that you wrote was so good. I’d be like, he didn’t write that! I did!
I once had a comedian beeline to Pat and congratulate him on the show. I was there, but he just didn’t say anything to me. It didn’t affect my confidence. That’s the nice part of being in a duo, we’re always supporting each other. It was just the assumption that Pat had everything to do with the brilliance of the show. Like the idea that Pat must’ve written that, or that must’ve been his idea. I find it frustrating when there’s an assumption that he’s done most of the writing, when it’s quite an even split.
Also, since we do a lot of online sketches, and since we work with Aunty Donna a bit with their podcast, I get so many positive comments, but I also get comments like, oh, the guy is alright, but that woman is a comedy blackhole. Now that’s in my Instagram bio.
Hot Department’s Honor Wolff and Patrick Durnan Silva.
When you read those comments, how do you feel? Do they just wash over you?
Yes! They really do. The only comments that hurt, are the ones that have truth to them. For example, if they said, oh, the energy dropped off at the end of their show. Nobody’s ever written that, because we have high energy through out the show, but if they said that, and it was true, and I remembered that show as being low energy. That would hurt more as it would feel true.
That makes sense. What advice would you give someone starting out in sketch comedy?
Write everything down! If you’ve got an idea, write it down, or even better, record it. The thing with sketch, is that it’s about getting up and trying it out. Just get up on stage and try it, and don’t be afraid of bombing. Learn to start your sketch by saying, hey, we’re a little bit different, get the audience onboard, and then go to your weird avant-garde sketch. You need to earn the audience’s trust and respect.
If you’re a sketch comedian, watch standup too. Learn set ups and punchlines. It can’t all be eating spaghetti on stage and thinking it’s funny.
Don’t get bitter, if it takes you a while to get good at it.
What can we look forward to you from this year?
We’re going to Hobart and Canberra and doing shows there. We’re going to Adelaide Fringe Festival for two weeks, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, and New Zealand Comedy Festival. We’ll be doing a lot of festivals, which we’re really excited about!
The show we’re doing this year is a celebration of the last seven shows we’ve done. This is our eighth live hour show, and it’s an amalgamation of some old stuff, and new, and all revised.
We’ll also be doing more online sketches. I just want people to go to our YouTube page and watch some of our online sketch comedy, because I’m really proud of it, because we did it with no budget. We’ll be doing a lot with Grouse House and Aunty Donna.
Thank you for your time, it’s been great! I’m excited to see you at the Canberra show.
Hot Department is touring through Canberra/NSW, Hobart, and Adelaide. They’ve also got a thriving YouTube channel, you can take a look here.
★★★★ They walk, so a new breed of fast-paced and ultra-camp comedians can run. TIMEOUT
Hot Department showing at The Q
Thursday, 5 February 2026
The Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre
253 Crawford Street, Queanbeyan, NSW 2620
