The Imperfects · Hugh van Cuylenburg, Ryan Shelton & Josh van Cuylenburg

Troy Kinne - It’s What’s Inside That’s Backwards

November 16, 2025·1 hr 14 min·6 clips

Troy Kinne reveals he had set a date to end his life — and what stopped him was hanging out the washing.

The silly bit is the doorway. A throwaway cold open about putting mate on vulnerability cards puts the show in familiar territory: warm, ridiculous, and still headed for something honest. Then the floor drops. Troy explains why COVID scared him so much. Dextrocardia is part of it, but the bigger piece is having one lung and being prone to lung infections. The hosts do not hurry him along. They notice they have brushed past something huge, then leave space for him to say how frightened he was. The health story tightens from there. He talks about getting sick in the middle of 2023 and not really getting clear of it until the middle of 2024. A year is a brutal amount of time. He remembers four weeks sick, antibiotics and steroids, one small week of relief, then the same thing coming back. The timing is the cruel part. He had just written a new show about being made wrong, with those experiences worked into comedy. That irony hits hard. The thing meant to turn pain into a laugh arrived right when his body made performing feel nearly impossible. Brisbane gives the story its clearest picture. He is at his parents' place in Mooloolaba, usually a favourite stretch, lying in bed coughing before driving to five shows in a row. Shame sits under all of it. There is no tidy lesson, just that awful feeling of being stuck in a body that will not cooperate. The hosts mostly listen, which helps. Their small responses keep it close, while Troy carries the hard part himself. After the thanks, the episode moves into the Patreon note and a careful reminder that the show is not mental health care.

As heard by us

A funny, uneasy conversation about illness, shame, and trying to perform through a body that keeps changing the rules.

Troy Kinne's visit to The Imperfects is strongest when the comedy drops just enough to show what has been sitting underneath it. He talks about living with a version of dextrocardia, having one lung, and why COVID felt less like background news than a direct threat.

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Why you'd press play

You get the jokes first, then the hard story about a year of sickness and fear.

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