We Are Darren and Riley, a small web comedy series about two struggling comedians, is enjoying a growing online following after launching online last month.
The ten-part series tracks Darren and Riley (Darren Low and Riley Nottingham) as they navigate the perilous world of breaking into TV comedy.
The real-life long-time friends, who have known each other from childhood, originally conceptualised the series as a TV sketch comedy but decided to head down the digital route after feedback from their pilot suggested it was better suited to the web.
The decision was then made to keep the episodes short and sweet – around three to five minutes each – and released every week on Wednesday evenings.
It is a gamble that appears to have paid off with the duo enjoying considerable online attention given their previous anonymity.
“We’ve had 12,000 views on our YouTube channel and the feedback has been very positive,” enthuses the 22-year-old Nottingham. “Comedians like Sammy J from The Project have shared our videos and we have about 500 likes on Facebook. The video for this week has garnered over 2000 views in the first day, so too early to call viral or anything but certainly popular, which has been really great.”
The web series is distributed by Beyond Entertainment who assisted the duo in gaining funding from Screen Queensland earlier this year.
Nottingham describes the series as having “a broad range of comedy that appeals to a wide audience, but we do cover some controversial topics like racism in episodes, sexual objectification of women and transsexuality, [as well as] a variety of easily relatable situations such as awkward dates and run-ins with ex colleagues.”
The pair is thrilled with how the series has so far been received and hopes the steady audience growth will transition to a second series.
Check out their website or Facebook page.