Bromance, birth order and toxic family relationship lolz with Mark Little and Andy Bush

Mark Little (Mr. D, Roller Town) and Andy Bush (Roller Town, Street Cents) are the creators and stars of Cavendish, a new CBC comedy premiering January 10.  They play a pair of brothers who return to their Nova Scotia hometown and find it more supernatural than they remembered it. While spooky happenings provide a lot of scares, the comedy comes from the relationship between Mark and Andy's characters, who are conveniently named "Mark" and "Andy". I sat down and spoke to them about  brotherhood, family relationships, and the balance between picking on siblings and having their back.

On "brotherhood"

The show Cavendish is all about two brothers and their relationship to each other. Can you two give me your definitions of "brotherhood"?

Andy Bush: I'm an only child, so I don't have brothers, and …

Mark Little (interrupting): I have a sister! She was younger, but she was the bully. She subverted a lot of expectations in those dynamics. One time she hid my guinea pig and put the cat near its cage. When I got home and didn't immediately react the way she wanted me to, which was to burst into tears, she was like "What is the cat doing in your room?" Then I noticed what she wanted me to notice, which was an empty cage and a lurking cat, and then I burst into tears.

So… brotherhood for me is a kind of victimhood that you can carry around with you for the rest of your life to excuse your own bad behaviour.

Andy Bush: Like I said, I'm an only child. But I can talk about my relationship with Mark, and in that case, brotherhood is… constant fury, frustration, and just questioning whether…

Mark Little (talking over Andy): you know, when someone's playing a drum really loud, but they're like separated….

Andy Bush: and being constantly cut off when you're trying to speak…

Mark Little: or cutting someone off and feeling good about it!

Andy Bush: so that would be my experience of brotherhood.

Rivalry, bullying, and birth order

Your on-screen brotherhood isn't totally harmonious. In Cavendish, like in Mark's family, it seems like the youngest is more of a bully whereas the eldest plays the victim a little more. Does this go against the natural order?

Mark Little: Well, parents worry about the eldest, because it's their first child, so there are some nerves. And they might put in some extra care, extra concern, and the younger one gets to slip under the radar a little bit. That is certainly my experience.

Andy Bush: In the show, Mark is the bully. He's the favourite son. He's the baby of the…

Mark Little: I'm the baby from Dinosaurs! I will a) hit my daddy in the face with a frying pan, and b) you gotta love me. And c) I will know if you're not the momma.

So is there a winner in this rivalry? Is there a Kenny and a Spenny?

Mark Little: I am most definitely Kenny.

Andy Bush: I am maximum Spenny. Every episode, it's definitely Spenny. I never get a win.

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Do you guys have any good real-life prank stories, whether with siblings or not?

Mark Little: Mine is my sister pranking me to make me think my guinea pig had been killed.

Andy Bush: I hate pranks. I hated playing them, and I hated being pranked. My friend group just didn't do that to each other. We were just very respectful of each other.

Mark Little: Andy and his friends called each other "Sir".

Andy Bush: I once played a prank, I put a snowman penis as a screensaver on my friend's computer and he lost his mind. He was so angry that it just wasn't fun. And none of my friends thought it was fun either.

Mark Little: One doesn't do that to one's friends, Andrew.

Andy Bush: Honestly, I felt terrible and never did it again.

Bromance vs. what Andy and Mark have

Do you guys think that onscreen male relationships are changing? For example, what do you make of the  concept of "bromance"? Is your onscreen relationship an example of that?

Mark Little: I don't know when that idea ["bromance"] started, but certainly it's as old as buddy cop movies. Like, there is usually some other romantic subplot, but these movies are really about Mel Gibson and Danny Glover coming together by the end. It's always been there, but it's become more explicit for sure. I think the turning point must be I Love You Man. The word "bromance" and I Love You Man came out at the same time. It was like leaning into it, not leaving it so much to subtext, though still a little.

Andy Bush: Superbad had a bromance as well. They actually say "I love you" to each other at the end.

And your onscreen brotherhood?

Andy Bush: We have a very Planes, Trains, and Automobiles feel to us. It's a big thing for us. It's one of my favourite films.

Mark Little: The one thing we never try to show you is any kind of genuine tenderness. We don't mind if that's in the subtext, but it's more like: the start of every episode we're at odds, and the end of almost every episode we're at odds, unless we've been equally defeated. The only thing that truly brings us together is when everyone else thinks we're shit.

Andy Bush: Whenever we do actually come together in the third act, we're running for our lives.

Does that explicit hostility conceal a deeper bond?

Andy Bush: Maybe that's true. When the world comes after us, we do bond together. At least in the show, there are times I'm in genuine danger, and on Mark's part, there is genuine concern.

Mark Little: Yeah, but if you were to psychoanalyze it, there's a problem in a relationship where you only realize how much you love each other when you are in peril together or one of you is desperately in need. I think that gets romanticized a little. In reality, it's toxic. You should be breaking it down and fixing it.

Maybe that's the greater truth about the show: on the surface it's two brothers against the world but, beneath that, on  a day-to-day level, from moment to moment…it's two brothers against each other.

Cavendish is an original comedy series. It premieres Tuesday, January 8 at 9:30 p.m. (10:00 p.m. NT) on CBC and the CBC Gem streaming service.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Clifton Mark is a former academic with more interests than make sense in academia. He writes about philosophy, psychology, politics, and pastimes. If it matters to you, his PhD is in political theory. Find him @Clifton_Mark on Twitter.