Stand-up comic Aidan Jones created his show Taco as a way of dealing with the emotional journey he went on in 2019 when he met his biological father for the first time.
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The show launched in 2020 and has since been filmed for Amazon Prime with the Bendigo performance on January 20 set to be the last time Aidan will perform the show live.
"My cousin and his wife who I am close with, live in Bendigo, so it is a good place to end," he said.
"Recording it as a special in November (2021) was a drawn out process with the lockdowns.
"There have so many milestones with this show but I am adamant this is the last time performing it. I have written two hours worth of new material, so it's ready to put bed."
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Growing up knowing something was different, Aidan took a laid-back, humour-filled attitude to the story behind his parentage.
Aidan's mother became pregnant with him following a backpacking trip through Columbia but Aidan had a standard Australian childhood.
"I grew up with a step dad who met mum when I was two," he said. "So I had a mum and a dad. But both parents are white and I'm mixed race - so I knew when I was a kid.
"When I was 10, Mum sat me down and explained it. She showed me some snippets from her trip.
"As a teenager, I made jokes without thinking too hard about. ONe of my first girlfriends said I looked Mexican and that's where my nickname Taco came from."
After finishing high school, Aidan wanted to know more about his father.
"In my early 20s I started asking mum for more details and if could find him," he said. "She was with him for six months and he knew I was born - she told him and they spoke on phone a few times.
"He had tried to come to Australia but it didn't work out. A friend if Mum's in UK had also had a kid with one fo the Colombian guys who had all played in a band together."
In 2019 at age 28, Aidan met his biological father for the first time when he travelled to Austria. But even then Aidan said he couldn't grasp how major a moment this was for him.
"I don't know if it is the Australian man way of dealing with big emotional things but I didn't engage heavily with it," he said. "Men are a bit avoidant in Australia, we don't go for emotional things.
"When I said I was going to Vienna where he lives, people were saying 'it's huge' and I was like 'yeah' I was a bit numb through the process."
Aidan got his start in comedy when he was 20 after being encouraged by his school friends.
"There were a few moments when friends would tell I was the funniest person they knew," he said. "I loved comedy but I never knew it was something you could go and do.
"When I was young I would watch the comedy gala on TV but I never thought I could do that.
"When I was 20 I watched a documentary on Bill Hicks who started comedy when he was 14 and sneaking out of his house to go comedy clubs. I just thought if a 14 year old can do this, a 20 year old can."
Meeting Fernando, Aidan's biological father - was the basis of his stand-up comedy show Taco.
"Reflecting on it, and writing and performing the show, made me realise there is more stuff there than I first thought," Aidan said. "(Fernando) wrote me letters when I was born but they never got sent and were returned to him. So there are more things I want to know.
"I think I was a lot angrier than I realised when I was younger. I used humour to deflect the fact I had never met (my biological) dad and when I was asked about my skin colour it brought up feelings.
"But I was never conscious of it, I just used to make jokes and say 'I'm Taco'."
Taco has been performed for the last two years across Australia including at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. the Adelaide Fringe and Perth Fringe festivals.
Regularly performing the show for the past two years has seen Aidan find more and more meaning in it.
"Doing the show, I found it brought me closer to my step dad who raised me. It made me appreciate everything he did for me," he said.
"Getting closer to my Colombian heritage is part of journey but writing show left me asking why I was chasing guy when I have got the dad I got."
Aidan Jones's stand-up comedy show Taco is at The Engine Room Theatre in View Street, Bendigo, on Friday, January 20. Visit www.gotix.com.au for tickets.
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